So, I promised pictures of the things I was working on while I was in Frauenau, I took a workshop in glass engraving with
Wilhelm Vernim. I went wanting to learn to become better at doing more detailed work, particularly people, so I started with doing portraits like the ones below. Wilhelm is a wonderful teacher! Our class, which was only four students, was quite varied in experience and interest. We all had very different places that we were coming from, and very different things that we wanted to learn, and he was able to teach to each of us individually. I think we all learned a lot from each other, and the little community that we developed so quickly.
I can draw now! I've always found it weird that I have no patience for drawing, and can spend twelve or fifteen hours on a tiny engraving without being bored, but stop a drawing after twenty minutes, generally, but now after having learned to make engraved portraits (maybe portrait is the wrong word, these faces are not real people, they are made up in my head) I am much happier to draw more and better at it. Engraving has often been attractive to me because I can somehow think of it more like sculpting than drawing, I think.
About halfway through, there was a cocktail party, where each person was asked to make a personal drinking vessel to bring, the one on the right of the image with the hands on it is mine, I did the foot one later in the week to go with it. I'm getting really happy with my hands and feet lately, and my people are looking more like people and less like monster chickens.
Speaking of monster chickens, also on the list of things to work on, I made a few bird-monster-people. There seems to be a thing in contemporary engraving going on with bird people, so I thought I'd join the bird people club. I need to work on making the chest of the brown one look less like armor.
I also did some more sculptural things, here are some gooseberries that I cut out of stop light glass. The read is amazing! It glows perfectly. AND IT COMES FROM STOP LIGHTS!
