A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to travel down to Harlow in Essex to partake in a Sandcasting workshop with Ewa Wawryzniak and Jon Lewis.

I was very keen to extend my knowlegde of this lovely way of working with glass, so when I saw this class offered I jumped at the chance.

It was a long way on the train, and I had to navigate the London underground on my own - for a Northern girl that doesn't often use public transport, this was quite a feat!  But I managed it.

 

The worshop was amazing, we learnt how to craft our own sand moulds and how to manipulate the shape to give the best possible outcome when molten glass was poured into it.

 

 

I chose a couple of different shapes to experiment with, adding a lot of glass stringers to one of them to see what would happen when the hot glass hit it.

 

 

It was a great day, but sadly I had to wait a week until I could see the outcome of my experiments as they were tucked away in a very hot kiln to anneal - patience isnt my strongest quality, but eventually my pieces arrived in the post and I was thrilled!

 

Both needed some cold work (which is where you grind, polish and finish the pieces off nicely) and I chose to grind off one side of the cone shape, before polishing it up to show the beauty inside.

 

 

The stringer piece also needs some cold work and polishing, but I have not got around to that just yet!   Please do pop back to see the progress on that piece....... if you would like to be notified of my new blog posts please do let me know by emailing info@suesimmons.co.uk