Because I don't already have enough to do, and because I'm always looking for ways to improve my glass-working skills, and because it was there, I decided to participate in a 30-day challenge Kelly Crosser Alge is hosting called the 30-Day Sgraffito Challenge. Of course, I started out behind since we just got back from Hawaii, but I managed to get caught up yesterday and today.
If you didn't already know, sgraffito is a technique in which a solid layer of some medium (paint, for example) is laid down and then a design is scratched or drawn into it. In this case, we're using glass powder laid onto sheet glass. I'm having to let go of my desire to be precise, however, because we're not necessarily doing sgraffito. Some pieces may fit that definition, but mostly everyone (over 400 participants) is drawing with powder. I think you can follow this link to Kelly's blog if you're interested to learn more about the challenge.
At the very least, you're stuck with me sharing my work because Kelly prefers we use a blog to share rather than posting on the group Facebook page. As you can imagine, that would get pretty clogged up with so many participants. Here are my first few pieces.
This owl was my first piece yesterday. It's about 4"x6", and our instructions said to only use our fingers to create an image. I promptly learned just how big and blunt my fingers are.
For our second piece, we could use our fingers and a business card to draw a tree. I actually used a piece torn off of an index card, a fortuitous choice because I liked the softness of the torn edge. This time I tried to stick strictly to the idea of sgraffito, so I sprinkled black powder across my 4"x6" piece of glass and used the card to draw into it.
Day 3 called for doing a landscape using fingers and a card, while on Day 4 we were supposed to do five quick 5-minute sketches, photograph each, and choose our favorite to publish. I kind of combined the two instructions today, and put both of these little guys (about 3"x4") in the kiln. These photos show how they look unfired. I'll post the fired pictures tomorrow along with Day 5's result.
I think it will be good for me to devote even a few minutes every day to doing this. Now if I could find the will to do the same with other areas of my life.
