Five Ravens for Five Minutes Each

Today's challenge was to make five small sketches, spending no more than 5 minutes on each. I decided to try my hand at one of the iconic images of Alaska: the raven. To be more specific, a raven holding some small red object in its beak—you see this image everywhere. It could represent a berry, but I believe in the Native Alaskan mythology, the raven would be holding a salmon egg.

I cut five white opaque rectangles measuring 1 3/4" x 1 1/8" and set to work. I first sifted a small amount of black frit powder on the piece, then used a brush and small tool to subtract material until I had the familiar raven head, beak open. I then added some subtle sgraffito touches (eye, nostril, feather texture). That was it, five minutes. These will end up as part of suncatchers, and I will put a little piece of red frit between the beak of each bird to emulate the salmon egg.

It was interesting to see how each tile approximated the same image, but was different. It's hard to put into words the elements that make up the proper aspect of a raven's beak, but I knew when I was working when I had a beak shape that was "too eagle" or "too finch". A raven's beak has a solid thickness, but is also delicate at the end for clever dexterity. Some of these are more "raven" than others, but overall I feel some essence of the bird exists in each tile. It will be fun to see them with the egg fired in place.

Landscape in Miniature, Day 3 of the Challenge

Today I decided to go small, and create some miniature Alaskan landscape scenes. Each of these strips is 1 1/8" high and about 7 inches long. I sifted black frit powder across each, then used a small brush, a sculpting tool and an Xacto knife to carefully remove the powder to create stands of trees, mountains, water, and islands. It was a tedious exercise, but I was happy with the result.

Of course, when you're working with powdered glass you don't have the luxury of being able to sneeze. In fact, I wear a respirator and even then sometimes catch myself holding my breath while I work on a particularly detailed spot.

I will fire these tonight and the bottom strip of forest will probably end up as a "part sheet", which means I will cut it into smaller chunks for use in other projects. The upper strip will be incorporated into a larger piece with other glass. I never run out of inspiration when it comes to the landscape here in Alaska.

Day 2 of the 30 in 30 Challenge

 

This is the view I see every morning when I drive to work. The island where my office is located is adjacent to the Treadwell Mine, which was once the largest, most productive gold mine in the United States. Miners pulled more than 200 million ounces of gold out of that mine, until somebody tunnelled a bit too close to the channel, and the wall collapsed, flooding the mine with seawater. I hate when that happens.

Anyway, there are many ruins on the island, including the old pumphouse, the strangest-looking building I've ever seen. It looks like one of those tall, skinny caricatures of a house that a little child might draw, but it's real. I'm not sure why it has such an unusual shape, but it sits out in the channel, surrounded by water at high tide, and lifted on a small spit of rock and sand at low tide. I love it, and photograph it all the time.

It made for an excellent, dramatic subject for my second frit drawing. Can't wait to fire this one.

Taking On The 30 in 30 Challenge!

 This new year brings with it more than the usual amount of "newness." Glass Bird Studios moved from New Mexico to Juneau, Alaska late last year. I love it here in the Northwest, though the short days and long, dark nights made me very glad to see the winter solstice come. Later this month I will be showing my work in the Juneau Artists Gallery, and have been pushing hard to produce new work for that opportunity.

When I read about the 30 Frit Drawings in 30 Days Challenge on the Facebook page Fused Glass Fanatics, I was intrigued. I love working with frit, and have always enjoyed drawing. What a perfect way to pull myself out of production mode and into pure creativity! Of course, making art is always productive, but I am letting myself range widely in the images I select to work on during the challenge...whatever catches my eye is what I will do, rather than staying within some self-imposed notion of consistency or theme. This activity will be about exploring glass using the technique known as sgraffito.

This morning I viewed today's Facebook post by the wilderness guide, author, and photographer Lynn Schooler, who also happens to live in Juneau. The striking photo he posted of a raven in snow struck me as the perfect image for my New Year's frit drawing. I was delighted when he gave permission for me to use the image as inspiration, so I got to work.

I cut a piece of white opalescent glass 5 1/2" x 9" and sifted a thin layer of black opal powdered frit over the top. Using my fingers, various small brushes, an Xacto knife, and clay sculpting tools, I pushed the powder around, subtracting it, defining forms, and creating texture. It was suggested that the first drawing be fingers-only, but I was more interested in getting the right results for this drawing...something I could not accomplish with just my fat fingertips!

I photographed the piece when I was satisfied that I had adequately interpreted the spare elegance of Lynn's original photo. Tomorrow I will fire the panel and think about what I want to do with it next. It's snowing in the source photo, and I need to see if I can find a way to represent snowflakes against the raven's deep black body. It's a challenge that I'll address in later firings, probably by adding white frit powder.

In the meantime, this image of a raven in winter is my first contribution to the 30 in 30 Frit Drawing Challenge. Thanks to fellow glass artist Kelly Alge for launching the challenge. I'm happy to be one of the 300+ artists participating!