From paper to pot - creating the bowls.
I take most of my inspiration from the natural world, from atoms to solar systems and everything in between.
Some patterns come to me in a flash almost pot ready. They only need a little tweaking in the design and then hours of practise sketching the subject so I can easily and smoothly 'draw' the design with my scalpel.
Most new ideas take months, and sometimes years, to develop. It's one thing to want to capture a plant or animal in a drawing on flat paper; but I have to consider how it will lie on the curved surface of a bowl. Will an image make sense if half of it is disappearing around the bend? As the glass is transparent I also have to judge how the pattern will look in layers, whether it will be too busy and confusing or will that add to a more natural effect.
I have repeatable designs where I take an idea, such as fish, and create a stylised design based on lots of study and sketches of the real things. Or I'll draw common plants from life
These can be very relaxing to draw, as long as the main details and dimensions are right they are quite forgiving.
My one off pieces not only have more interest within the glass but the decoration is much more complex. These are designs which would be too intricate to repeat or subjects that I want to play with and not be fixed as one design forever. However with my one off pieces I like to get everything right. If I get the wrong number of veins on a pear leaf or the markings wrong on specific butterfly’s wing it annoys me, plus there will always be someone who will point out an error.
All my glass is hand blown in 24% lead crystal glass. I design the forms and decorate them by sandblasting a unique design into the surface.
I have been working with Jane Charles, one of the country’s leading studio glass makers, for nearly 30 years. My work is blown at her studio in the historic glassblowing district of Lemington in Newcastle upon Tyne.
Jane blows to my design guidelines for my repeatable bowls, incorporating thin layers of colour to produce ‘cased‘ glass as she goes. I like these bowls to have a little variety rather than always being exactly the same shape and dimensions; because I hand draw the decoration I want each bowl to be as individual as the pattern.
When we blow my one off pieces I always go in with ideas for shapes for specific designs I already have started developing. Jane then has to put up with me interfering with the blowing process to add powdered colour or inclusions and so I can manipulate the glass to produce ribbons of colour, folds, bubbles or ripples within the glass.
Once the pieces have been blown and carefully cooled, they arrive at my workshop to be decorated.
I usually start a new design with the pattern first and then choose a pot to put it on.
Occasionally though a pot is blown that just screams 'turtles' or 'lots and lots of butterflies'
I cover the ‘casing’, the coloured surface of the bowl, with a special tape which will resist the sandblasting. I hand draw the design directly onto this layer and then follow my drawing with a scalpel forming a unique stencil. I must take care to just cut through the tape and not scratch the glass.
By removing small parts of the stencil, I can sandblast through the layer of coloured glass to the clear glass.
Careful sandblasting can create subtle shades within the colour and by revealing and re-masking individual parts of the pattern I can develop a delicate and intricate design across the surface of the bowl.
Some of my repeatable patterns are sandblasted onto both sides of the glass to create depth within the image.
Almost all my one off’s have sandblasting on both sides of the glass, but often I will use the layers of colour or shape of the glass to hide pattern, instead of it all being ‘out there’ as it is on a basic repeatable design.