Gorgeous Array of Greens

We walked along the creek's edge and there were so many different colours of green.  I love them all.....deep viridian green's you'd hardly expect to find in a forest together with the yellow green of the miniscule buds emerging from the fronds.  I love the greens all together there and have created this series of bowls and called them NEW FOREST, HAMPSHIRE.

Some of the glass is beautifully transparent while some (called Adventurine) is dense and includes sparkles).  Stringers (fine thin strands of coloured glass) have also been added to this series.

There is a round one too in the collection of NEW FOREST, HAMPSHIRE.  Here it is
This series is in constant demand from Nurseries.  They tell me that their customers love to buy a gift plate with greens in it when they purchase their plants. One stop shopping at its best!

If you would like any of these works in fused glass, please just email me or call me. 

Coloured art glass woven fruit bowl

My friend rebuilt her entire kitchen....starting by pushing down the interior walls.  It was a HUMUNGOUS JOB.  Regardless of the mess, the inconvenience and the cost, down came the walls, out went the stove and everything.  The entire plan was to keep it elegant and simple with an enormous shiny redgum bench as the feature.

 This is where I came in and made a woven fruit platter to match.  This is the ruby and cherry red art glass, (must make sure that I used the Cherry red and not the ruby - the cherry is a gorgeous colour)!

The first thing was to purchase the colours that she ordered.  Cherry Red and Grape and loads of clear which I cut into strips the old fashioned way. 

 Here is the almost finished stack of glass used in this 40cm x 40cm platter.  We fused some samplers to ascertain which firing schedule was best for the result we wanted.......

The strips were carefully lined up in the kiln.

Here it is before the kiln is turned on.  It goes into the kiln for a full fuse, but a soft full fuse so that we could see the dimensions between the layers.

Close up then wide shot between the full fuse and the slump.

Then, I prepared the mold after carefully washing and drying the work.  Here's the mold.

Gently taking the kiln only up to 677 degrees the glass was placed on top of the mold and here is the final result. 

I'm trying to take a new style of picture of my glass art....here are a couple of examples.  We had such fun taking these. 

I think showing people in pictures like this shows you more realistically the size, shape and colour of the work.  I'm now working on one that features two transparent mid blue stripes and one almond strip. 

And my favourite.

that's the story of our new cherry red and grape woven fruit bowl...I do hope you like it.

Unbelieveable look at what our homes might look like in the future

New American Sushi Plate for Lovers

Oh no, its been almost a whole year, since I last blogged -that will never happen again!

I want to tell you about our journey to producing this brand new sushi plate (for lovers!) 
So the first thing I needed to do was to purchase some sushi and california rolls,

 so that i could measure then.....its a tough job, but someone has to do it. 

You know when you eat those delicious California Rolls, filled with avocado, cucumber and prawns, sushi rice all wrapped together, then you want some soy sauce on them?  .....

Normally you can dip them in teeny weeny little tiny reservoirs.  You get the smallest portion of your Californaa Roll to make magical content with the soy sauce - not any more!!!

The solution is at hand - the sushi plate that has a reservoir designed especially for the fattest and most luxurious sushi roll so that you can now dunk the entire "roll" into the soy sauce.

Here's how the design started out.  I cut out one hole larger than a large California roll and one that's slightly smaller.  The material used here is Ceramic Fibre Board which is easy to cut with a stanley knife or craft knife.

  I added some fish shapes that were cut from Ceramic Fibre Paper (3mm thick) and here's the result

This wasn't what the customer wanted because they want two people to eat from the plate and need two identical dipping reservoirs.  So back to the cutting board - literally. 

Now our lovers can sit opposite each other at their table and share and dip to their hearts content!

Back to purchase more sushi from my local shopping mall! And here is the result - we love it.

Here's what the reservoir looks like close up:

And it sits evenly and yet firmly on its lovely "cut out" corners.

We are going to call this the New American Sushi Plate for Lovers!  I'm proudly producing these not only for my customer in America but for the local galleries around Melbourne, Victoria as well.

 The New American Sushi Plate for Lovers also has a "resting place" for both sets of chops sticks as well.

The NEW AMERICAN SUSHI PLATE FOR LOVERS is available in bulk too, if you want larger quantities for your restaurant. (Feel free to contact me with your inquiry.)

Flickr

Have just spend the last few hours searching through Flickr and all the magnificent art works that talented people have uploaded to their Flickr accounts.  I can't suggest strongly enough that you search through Flickr for your favourite and most inspirational topics...also look up memorable places from your childhood and see if someone has a picture of it.  My friend of mine used to go to Bournemouth for his summer holidays and always loved visiting the Shell House....one day when he re-visited Bournemouth, the Shell House had completely disappeared and yet tonight, on Flickr I found a picutre from 1965 of the Shell House.  Success and Joy. 

Wine Bottle Stopper with glorious colourful glass cabochons attached

I've sent all these Wine Bottle Stoppers off to a new outlet in Andersonville, Chicago, Illinois.  If you want a set of these, please check out my Etsy shop and order the colour combination you'd like.