Glass Design Blog

 

 

Today was my final couple of workshops at  Tarleton Academy. Its been a fun few weeks working with many, many students in years 7, 8, 9 and 10. The quantity of work produced has been astonishing and has given me such rich source material to work from.

For these sessions we worked with the cyanotype prints produced in earlier workshops, along with the wire drawings, copying them onto sheets of acetate and tracing paper. The students then used these to create new laminated pieces developing on from the earlier ones using just flat colour.

The glass laminating process is one which I will be using in the production of the windows, so an immediate and relevant process for the students to use.

 

 

Todays workshops at Tarleton Acadamy, explored some of the issues that we need to take into consideration when designing architectural glass, the main one being the effect of light transmitting through the windows.  Transparency, translucency and opacity are important elements I will take into account for the windows at the Chapel Gallery, Ormskirk.

The students worked on a smaller scale using sheet materials which translated these three qualities. Card, tracing paper, tissue papers, coloured cellophanes and net fabrics were used to create images which which were laminated to create mini windows.

 

By layering the transparent layers of colours, new colours could be achieved. Frames, outlines were cut in card to create bold shapes and silhouettes. The tracing paper filtered the light, diffusing it softly but also blocking out visual interference from buildings behind. Students found they could draw onto the tracing paper to create more interesting surfaces. The cellophane could be scrunched and manipulated to get textures into the colour.