INVESTIGATING COLOUR AND TEXTURE THROUGH ABRASIVE TECHNIQUES ON SHEET GLASS. by Claudia Phipps.

Introduction

Abrasive techniques in glass, ie. processes of ‘taking away’ include sandblasting, engraving and acid etching as well as drilling. The investigation looks at the possibilities of using these processes on coloured glass to combine tests, and to create multi -layered images. In this way it is possible to create images in which there is an appearance of depth in the glass. Glass as a transmitter of light reacts in a very specific way to tints and hues. The way in which the colours work together in glass is important to understand. Because of the direct relationship between light and colour, combining both colour and texture in glass is very different from working with pigment on a canvas. To analyse this, a series of tests have been developed which can be arranged in many different formats. The arrangement of tests has been deeply personal, as colour is by nature a subjective element.

The tests should create a piece or pieces which could demonstrate effective colour combinations, and use of textures and different processes. The results of the investigations can be seen in the series of photographs and the framed pieces. Some of the tests have been displayed so that the viewer is able to make his / her own arrangements and carry out a private investigation.

Part One: Intent.

The investigation encompasses both colour and abrasive techniques. This is because colour and texture are two fundamental attributes of stained glass. ( I am describing the art as stained glass because I have found no better term for it.)

For me, texture and colour are the most important aspects of creating a work in glass. Although naturally attracted to bright colours, I recognize the importance and the power of more subtle tones. By means of creating textures and layers of glass I want to investigate the power of colour combinations across the spectrum. I see great potential for my work within this, and am excited by the possibilities. John Piper, an artist who designed notable stained glass stated that "The medium has too many colours, too many forms, too many textures. One of each - that is enough at one time for anybody." By this he meant that it is very easy to be seduced by the wonderful qualities in the glass or to feel intimidated by the natural beauty of the material. It can sometimes be easier to work with the most basic clear float glass, and do things to the surface, such as painting, engraving or acid etching to create interest, rather than to take a beautiful piece of antique coloured glass, and to use it sympathetically with other pieces. I want, during the course of my investigation to overcome the feeling that I cannot touch the glass, and to use it to create pattern and texture. I also want to explore the relationship of colours to each other, and the ways in which they can be combined in layers of glass, through revealing layers by processes of "taking away."

I have chosen the simple circular motif to create unity in my test pieces. This is because I like the cultural implications of the circle. I find the form pleasing, and I felt that by choosing a shape which for me goes beyond simply being a shape, would lead the project being resolved as a work of art in its own right and not simply a series of tests.

In his introduction to ‘Discovery of the Circle’, Bruno Munari draws attention to the spiritual associations of the circle.

"since ancient times a simple circle has represented eternity, for it has neither beginning nor end. An old text says that God is a circle whose centre is everywhere, but whose circumference is nowhere."

Part two: Colour

I spent some considerable time reading and thinking about Itten’s theory of colour. He looked at colour within seven colour contrasts, His main influence coming from Goethe. These contrasts are: contrast of hue, light/dark contrast, cold/warm contrast, complimentary contrast, contrast of saturation, simultaneous contrast and contrast of extension. Looking at colour in this way can be very useful for exploring the way colours effect each other in all their different variations.

In glass, colour is exceptionally important. Most colourists who have written books on the subject are painters, and although you can learn an awful lot from painting, it doesn’t help you examine the effects of translucent colour in changing light conditions. However, I found two artists who worked with glass very inspiring in terms of their approach to colour. The first was Joseph Albers whose work I have always found to be important in my own development.

Albers had a refreshing approach to colour. Although he had trained in an environment where the strongest approach to colour was expressionist, he investigated very different kinds of colour combinations. He painted a whole series of grey squares, which are very simple and subtle. If you mix your own greys, and paint them side by side, the dominant colours glow, so that what seemed to be a medium grey on the palette suddenly appears quite clearly as a shade of green, or pink, or blue. It is a fascinating study.

Albers worked with glass as well as paint. He was in charge of the Glass workshop at the Bauhaus until Meyer took over from Gropius at Dessau. In glass, his best known works are his early assemblages from scraps taken from the Weimar city dump, and his later sandblasted flashed glass experiments. These are made from opaque flashed glass and are very controlled and graphic imagery. He restricted colours to white, red and black, which give the pieces a very impersonal feel.

Very different from Albers is the approach of Christopher Whall, a respected victorian practitioner who wrote ‘Stained Glass’ from the ‘Artistic series of technical handbooks’, printed in 1905. His approach to colour was similar to Oswald’s colour solid - ‘regarding value-content of hues as the primary determinant of their harmonious juxtaposition’. "The harshest contrasts, even discords may often be brought into harmony by added notes." Whall offers practical advice for the handling of colour in glass; "the very way you treat your glass when all is chosen and placed together - matt in one place, film in another, chequering, cross hatching, clothing the raw glass with texture and bringing out its nature and its life." This sentence sums up very neatly the reason why I felt it so important to investigate both colour and texture in glass.

Part Three: Testing.

I started testing all four abrasive techniques using clear glass. I wanted to gain more confidence in the methods before I started to play with the colour. Having had previous experience with both sandblasting and engraving, I didn’t regard these areas as so much of a challenge. In this I was perhaps mistaken. When you are familiar with a particular working technique, it is sometimes more difficult to experiment with different types of mark which are not tried and tested. I was inspired by acid etching, and spent some time getting to grips with it. I found that I enjoyed the unpredictable quality of the results produced. I approached the drilling with equal enthusiasm, but soon found that apart from being difficult to do, with many casualties, it is not very versatile. However, it does produce some interesting results, and allows the light to pierce through in a very pure way.

As I developed on to working with coloured glass, I found that there was much to explore in sandblasting, engraving and etching. To date I am aware that I could go on forever discovering new effects, especially in acid etching. I have explored masking out with wax to produce a softer mark, sandblasting the glass first, or engraving it. All these combinations could be an investigation in their own right. I thought I had exhausted the possible marks to be made with the engraving wheel, but not so! The engraving wheel, more than any other way of working, is like a kind of paintbrush in its versatility and subtlety of expression. Even working with just one wheel, it is possible to make soft, hard, firm, wavering, deep, shallow, precise or fuzzy marks.

In the case of sandblasting, as long as you can think of different ways of masking out areas, there are again, endless possibilities. My latest discovery of wire mesh was very exciting, if very time consuming. I liked the way it was possible to combine the regular pattern with the irregularity of the sandblasting. When sandblasting right through glass, the edge is wafer thin and eroded. then there are the options of putting the piece in a kiln and melting the matt surface away, leaving behind a ghostly mark.

Different types of glass respond more or less easily to being treated by any of these techniques. The softer the glass, the easier it is to work. The colour of the glass is often a deciding factor in the softness of the glass, as different colours are composed of different chemical substances.

Part Four: Presentation.

Most of my investigation has involved looking at the tests in various combinations in daylight. I have noted how much difference it can make to have bright sunlight behind the glass to make it sparkle. However, to display the pieces in daylight, and hope that the sun shines is not practical, although infinitely preferable. In view of this, I have begun to investigate artificial light. My first step was to set up a spotlight behind the glass. I took photographs to document the results. Using a spot can be quite effective, but it does mean that the light has to be directly behind the glass, thus interrupting the image. I tried reflecting the light off a white wall, but it wasn’t really strong enough. I also took photographs of different series’ of tests on the overhead projector, looking directly at the light. This works much better, because obviously, the light is much brighter. I also investigated projecting the image onto the wall. This is interesting because of the different qualities produced. The depth that you see when looking at several layers of glass mounted together is totally lost. However, the indentations and marks in the glass become like shadows in the projected image. More than three pieces at the most become so dark that it is impossible to see anything. Playing with this idea led me to thinking about the possibility of displaying a number of interchangeable tests in an epidiascope. This is an early form of projector, which takes slides of 14 square centimetres. My only concern with this is that the light bulb will get very hot, and could potentially crack the glass. Apart from this I want to display about ten different compositions in small boxes, maybe with a light behind. The others I want to display in front of a long light box so that people can arrange tests for themselves, and see how different colours and textures work together.

Part Five: Conclusions.

There have been many outcomes of this investigation. Firstly it has helped me to define some of the aspects of working with glass which are important to me. I have a preoccupation with building up layers from comparatively simple elements. From an artistic viewpoint, I feel that this comes from a deep feeling of the importance of looking beyond the obvious, of seeing the world from a different perspective. It is important to be able to escape into your imagination. Through working with architectural glass, it is possible to present a magical luminous world. I like the symbolism in the concept of a window. The idea that looking through a window can be a view of a world to which we can aspire. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, stained glass windows in the great cathedrals would have been even more awe inspiring than today. To an ordinary person, it must have seemed as if he were beholding Paradise.

Carrying out an investigation in such a formal way has been a great discipline for me. It has inspired me in many ways, and has opened up new channels to investigate further. Firstly, I have found that the richness that can be found from combining these different techniques is something I wish to continue. Secondly, the investigation has deepened my understanding of how colour and texture can interact within glass. I found that as I continued, I could anticipate which combinations were going to work and which were not. For this reason I want to display some of the tests so that people can try making their own arrangements, and experience for themselves some of the factors which make colours and textures work together or not.

As a result of this investigation, I want to continue to develop my techniques of sandblasting through layers of glass, both in colour and clear. Rather than narrowing down the scope for investigation, it has opened up enough possibilities to fill a lifetime! Starting with a narrow discipline can provide the opportunity to be more creative than if the investigation is very broad. This is perhaps the greatest lesson I have learnt through this project. It has left me full of enthusiasm for future work, which can only be the most successful aspect of any artistic endeavor.

Postscript: Discussing Colour.

Throughout the individual sections, I have focussed on texture and not so much on colour. In contrast, much of my research was about colour, and I feel that the way I have combined tests was equally if not more so, an aesthetic appreciation of colour as well as texture. Colour in glass follows the rules of pigment and not light as you might expect. Red mixed with yellow will produce orange, and the three primaries are red, yellow and blue. I have learned a lot about how to combine colours in glass, as if I were mixing them on a palette. By creating this series of tests, I have created my palette, which can be added to as I discover new and exciting colours.

I began the project, by buying glass that had little or no texture and colour variation. I started by buying orange and white as well as green, red and blue. They were all flat hard colours of an equal strength, being quite dense. I found, as I had predicted, that pot metals are less versatile when combining colours. Unless one creates holes in the glass, it cannot be combined with tests so as to show both individual colours and the mixture. However, in some ways it pushed me further, as I have experimented with ways of creating holes in the glass, which I have found one of the most inspiring aspects of this investigation.

Through my research, I came across some inspiring thoughts about colour and its effects. Matisse, when talking about his stained glass, which can be seen in Vence, France, stated “I use the simplest colours, I don’t transform them myself. it is the relationship which takes charge of them. How right he is! It is only by taking the samples of glass, and laying them side by side, or over each other, that one can understand their relationships. Quantity of colour is equally important. How much blue looks right against a mid green? Of course, all this is deeply subjective. As a rule I found that colours which were closely related (blue and green) worked better together, than opposing colours (blue and orange). However, it very much depends on the desired effect. If you want to create a moody atmosphere, then a purple and an amber with a green, may work very well. However, if you want to create something more vibrant, then a red over an orange would be more effective. Christopher Whall explains this clearly in ‘Stained Glass Work’.

“Harmony in colour depends not only upon the arranging of right colours together, but the arranging of the right quantities and the right degrees of them together.”

When combining tests, the textures of different samples play an important part. Whall goes on to describe the importance of texture.

“And there is even something besides “tint” and “quantity”. The way you distribute your colour matters very much. Some in washes, some in slashes, some in spots, some in stripes.... the very way you treat your glass when all is chosen and placed together - matt in one place, film in another, chequering, crosshatching, clothing the raw glass with texture and bringing out its nature and its life.”

Sandblasted tests, with a soft but dense texture cut out much of the light, and so detail from engraved pieces behind sandblasted ones lose most of their definition. When combining tests using different techniques, it is better to use lighter colours, so that not too much definition is lost.

Obviously, the lighter the colour of a tests, the more tests can be combined. However, the richer colours create a moodier atmosphere.

At one stage, I found myself struggling with a predominance of orange and green. I tried to redress the balance by doing more blue tests. One problem I had was yellow. Traditionally, yellow in stained glass has been obtained from silver stain. Because I was not investigating applications to glass, I felt I should not use stain. Sunderland Glassworks produced various shades of amber, which I used, but amber is not the same as yellow. It is softer, and more mellow. I felt that my palette was lacking without a pure yellow. Eventually I found a pot metal spectrum yellow, which by contrast is too bright, too acid, and does not combine easily with other types of glass.

The investigation has helped me in applying colour theory to my work, and to find a personal aesthetic regarding colour. I have developed a method of testing combinations which will be useful to me in the future.

Bibliography.

Albers, J. 1994. Glass Light and Colour. Guggenheim museum: The Solomon R.

Gage, J. 1993. Colour and culture. London: Thames and Hudson.

Guggenheim Foundation.

Gage, J. 1999. Art, Science and Symbolism. London: Thames and Hudson.

Itten, J. The Elements of Colour.

Kandinsky, W. 1947. Concerning the Spiritual in Art. N. Y: George Wittenborn, inc. Matcham, L & Dreisder, P. 1982. The Techniques of Glass Engraving. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd.

Moor, A. 1997. Architectural Glass Art. London. Mitchell Beazley.

Piper, J. 1998. Stained Glass: Art or Anti-Art? Studio Vista Ltd.

Reyntiens, P. 1977. The Techniques of Stained Glass.

Whall, C. W. 1905. Stained Glass Work. (From The Artistic Crafts series of Technical Handbooks. ed. Letherby, W. R.) London: John Hogg.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. If you have any comments or suggestions, please email them to me at info@claudiaphipps.co.uk or click here to go to the contacts page