Day 4

I still can't get the new photos to upload onto Flickr, but it's home time soon, so I'll do it from there.

Well, Day 4 started with us finally seeing our first casts! Note to self: alabaster/opalino colours don't cast well, which is rather disappointing. And where there are creases in the glass, bubbles may appear (which could bring us to well-sculpted, farting mermaids, but that's a different story!) ;o) Most of us had thrown some sort of experiment in, and many of these turned out...others...didn't so well.

Then, those of us wanting to do an experiment in casting got do do so. I'd been eager to try and cast my hand, so I shoved it into sand, pinned a leaf down for good measure (allegedly, the veins keep intact), and Tom kindly poured it for me. I saw some fingers poking through the sand as it got transferred into the kiln, so I'm hoping it's a goer!

Demonstrations abounded - elephants, fish, and....oooh yes....dragons! Well, one dragon. Which was especially cool for me, since I missed it at the Flame Off this year! The rest of the day was about producing the flameworked components to go into the cast....so I made five different ladies - now, if only I could pick the best bits from each one. Julie kindly showed me how she makes a rose, which is completely different to how I make it, and a great way to do it off mandrel.

Then we had a BBQ, and copious amounts of wine, and, for me, the lastest night so far - very clever when you know you'll wake up at 5am, and will end up doing 5-6 hours' driving before you can sleep again. Ah well!