Photographs Comprised of Glass - Stained Glass "Prints" - Molten Casting... Etching..

[holmburgers]

Plaster Mold

Well this kinda resembles what I originally had in mind... though obviously lacking some of the requisites...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/scenicartisan/4040220743/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/scenicartisan/4046417987/

 

[wildbillbugman]

Holmburgers,
I am "back" after a week of having such a bad headcold that I lost interest in even reading about technical matters. I have done a few vey limited experiments in which I encapulated Pt/Pd/Au images between layers of glass and fired them in a kiln. For the images themselves, I used the same "subbing" and procedures that I have discribed in detail in an article in www.alternativephotography.com. I then fired the images in a kiln, The images retained there integrity through multiple layering and firing, laying one imaged sheet of glass on top of another for a total of 5 firings, one each for c,m,y and k layers and a top layer of glass.
I have not yet atempted a pigmented version of this. That will require special pigments that I have never even tried yet. But they are common in glass art.

 

[wildbillbugman]

Holmburgers,
I unintentionaly posted the above prematurely.
I purchased my glass firing equipment with grand intentions. But all of my time and effort I have invested in developing my panchro silver halide emulsion. If,and I mean IF, I I ever finish this and can get back to ART again (Now I'm not sure if I ever started ART ) I fuly intend to pursue this. Firing of not onl;y Pt/Pd/Au, but also Carbon Transfer.
A friend of mine, with similar interests, is further along than I am, not having been distracted by making her own Film for color separation work. I hope to visit her and her lab in WA to get caught up, once I am satisfied with my Panchro emulsion.
Bill

 

[wildbillbugman]

Everybody,
I missed outt on the Philosophy debate. Personaly, I find it impossible to NOT keep doing the same thing over and over again., For me doing is the pathway to original thought. Maybe some people can dream in a void. But the more I work to a specific goal, the more possible varriants and tangents occure to me. It realy is not a matter of who is right or wrong. Different people learn in different ways. Some people can read books and learn everything that they will ever want to know on a subject that way. That, by definition, is learning what someone else has thouhjt/done. That in not only enough for some people, for those people it is all that there is to learning. Others can spend a liftime doing the same thing over and over again and actualy keep getting better and better at it until they die. To that kind of person, that is enough. I once made a project out of mimicking Weston's Peper. Well, I could do it everyday for the rst of my life and mabe I could get so close that few could tell the difference between Weston's Original and my Fake. For some people that is enough. Stll some "photographers" (I actualy knew one) never do anything but plot chracteristic curves. Matching film to developer to to temperature to time to density. That, even I cannot relate to.!
For me, my hands are not connected to my brain. I am the clumsiest lab worker in the history of mankind. Yet doing stimulates my ideas. I am a mechanical Putz who, in my previous "Proffesional Life" was callked a "Mechanical genious". Sometimes people thought that I was doing the same thing over and over when infact my deliberate variations were just not obvious to the casual observer.
Enough quaking,
Bill

 

[holmburgers]

Hey Bill,

Glad to have you join the discussion, and indeed, knowing your love for glass I figured it was just a matter of time!

So over the weekend I've had a new idea for this one. My friend is a jewelry maker, and I asked her about casting glass and she started telling me about enamel.

Basically it's powdered glass with pigment that you fire and it will fuse to various metals. There is even a technique called plique-à-jour, which means 'letting in daylight' and is like stained glass in that it's designed to be viewed with transmitted light.

She also has a small kiln which excites me...

So anyways, I was thinking back to the original idea; using a plaster mold from a swelled carbon matrix (there are many, many precedents for this kinda thing, a lot of photoengraving techniques use it...). In the mold you could pour the very fine enamel powder into it, probably with a fairly high degree of resolution, use a very flat blade of sorts to scrape the top off, leaving enamel only in the valleys and in proportion to the image density, and finally fire it and allow the enamel to flow & fuse, hopefully not to the plaster, but just to itself.

This would leave you with a very fragile image in enamel, and you'd have to "lift" it out of the mold and ultimately combine it with the 2 other layers if you're doing full color. I wonder if this would work...

Bill, maybe after we have the 3 layers, they could be put onto a sheet of glass and fired one last time to fuse them all together into a true stained glass photograph?

Let me know if you come across some suitable CMY colors in enamel. I've done a little looking and it seems like a good magenta might be the hardest, but I'm sure it's really hard to tell from online color swatches. Also, how did your experiments in Pt/Pd/Au end up?

 

[wildbillbugman]

Holmburgers,
This sounds realy interesting,. A True Glass Photograph! I will go looking for suitable pigments tomorow. I mean look ing at my notes and on line. Perhaps my friend in WA will have some sources.
My Pt/Pd/ fired on glass went only as far as I have already described. I am still making emulsions most of the time. My latest emulsions are showing some relief, as I am not using hardener. Whether it is enough relief for what you are talking abouting I do not know. But I think that it is enough relief for dye transfer.
More later,
Bill

 

[holmburgers]

Awesome Bill, keep us posted. I'll see if I can't find more about plaster casting carbon reliefs in the meantime.

 

[DPVisions]

I wonder if this could be accomplished by replacing the PVOH with Poly(2-Ethyl-2 Oxazoline), aka Aquazol. Aquazol being used heavily in the ceramics/glass industry because it burns away cleanly when pieces are kiln fired. I am thinking that Aquazol could be used in a dusting on process where ceramic frit prigments are used and then fire the piece to fuse into the glass, repeating the process for each color seperation. Aquazol should have the same reaction to dichromates as PVOH.

I was recentyl at a glass/ceramics craft/guild shop and was amazed at the number of pigments available for fusing into glass. Amazing variety of glass sheet where also available.

Also there is technology available for direct digitial inkjet printing onto glass with ceramic frit based ink and then fired to fuse into/onto the glass. Seems like the technology is in much wider use in the UK and in US. Looks like it is based on a flatbed inkjet printer and specialized inks. http://www.dip-tech.com/SiteFiles/1/292/1611.asp

Cheers,
David

 

[Joe O'Brien]

Where I got to school we do glass molds, but we create the mold and then fill it with with ground/flaked glass called "frit". You need to make it sort of a heaping mound because there is some settling as the glass melt, however, doing this means that you don't need anything more than an electric kiln to fire the glass. I think for a full melt/fuse we don't even need to go over 1800F.

 

[wildbillbugman]

Holmburgers et al,
My friend in WA responded to my request for fireable enamel pigment sourses: Fusemaster
Reuche (Retaled by Pacific Artglass)
She made 2 points: Reds are based on gold and expensive, but just go for it. Do not try the cheaper reds made from cranberries and such.
Each color is fired at a different Temperature. Get a computerized kiln and become familiar with it. She highly reccomends workshops/classes. This stuff can get realy involved.
I have the disinct impression that this is NOT something that we can do as a side experiment. It will take as much dedication as experimental photography.
As much as I wanna try out the ideas set forth on this thread, I must stay focused on my emulsion until it is operational !
Bill

 

[holmburgers]

Bill, great stuff you've learned!

Here are some casting materials... http://www.pacificartglass.com/index.php?file=productdetail&product_id=2781&cat_id=390
http://www.pacificartglass.com/index.php?file=productdetail&product_id=1236&cat_id=390
http://www.pacificartglass.com/index.php?file=productdetail&product_id=11009&cat_id=390

They even have "translucent color separation enamels", though the colors look, uh, err, it looks like they need a refersher course on subtractive synthesis. http://www.pacificartglass.com/index.php?file=products&cat_id=354

I'm realizing that this idea is teetering on the line between "photos of glass" and "photos burnt into glass". The latter is really just photoceramics. Transparency/translucency is the key, and the thicker the glass the better.

I agree, probably not a walk in the park. But, something to think about and experiment with if possible.

 

[wildbillbugman]

Holmburhers,
My friend in WA also warned me that, in the world of glass, transparency and transleucency are two very different things. I am not free to identify my friend but, trust me, she knows her stuff.
I am now searching fore begginer courses/workshops in Glass fusing art in Southern CA. Bullseye has many very relevent 1 to 5 day workshjops that look usefull. But they are all in Portland and Santa Fe. I know. I just said I wasn't gonna do this. But............................. Godda keep my synapses from growing plaque. Bill