[Chambre de Verre] Life Needs a Little Flair [Closed]

[Iseult Fluersdotter]

Early Evening on the
2nd of Ioannes in the
Season of Summer

Her friends knew that Iseult blew glass for a living. Not that she had many. She didn't. She could probably look at one hand and count on less than five fingers the people that she thought she might be able to consider friends. Perhaps it expanded a little more than that. She knew people aplenty...it was simply a matter of her actually trusting them and getting past whatever insecurities--and Iseult could admit she had them--prevented her from really acknowledging them for what they are.

So she was determined to make something for those who had stuck by her, especially when she was cranky and argumentative. The gods knew the mood struck her more often than not. She knew she could be difficult to get along with. She knew that. But it was hard to change, hard to push back the stubborn moods that struck her because bending meant that she was weak. No, it didn't. She knew that. But it didn't mean it was any easier to control certain responses.

The glassworks had largely emptied out as the work brightening came to an end. She'd opted to stay late and work when no one else was around--she didn't feel up for getting a lecture from Dunnlevin or some other self-important gaffer about using work time on her own ventures.

Paper in front of her, legs wrapped around her stool, Iseult's fingers curled around a chunk of charcoal...and her mind got to work, fingers twitching as she began to sketch.

[Iseult Fluersdotter]

Vases took form across her sheets of paper. Here she had plenty of paper and plenty of charcoal to work with and Iseult didn't think twice about making use of it. Uninteresting or poor shapes she drew were crumbled and tossed aside in favor of those with a little bit of flair. She noted colors in the margins, drew designs on the vases themselves.

She didn't stick to vases, but drew also figurines and other artistic pieces--vessels whose only function was to look nice and attract notice, not to remain subtle and in the background. Since learning these techniques from Dunnlevin she saw no reason to hold back on them and she, for the most part, seemed to still be doing mostly plates, goblets, vases, and bowls since she'd started working at the place. Why not do grandiose pieces...even if they weren't exactly commissions?

Once she had all her sketches in front of her, Iseult sat back and surveyed them, mouth tipping this way and that as she tried to decide which ones to make...or which ones were complete rubbish. She selected two to make that brightening--two that she could get away with tucking into the annealer without too many questioning eyes being turned about the workroom.

One was an delicately curving vase of a pale pink to be later painted with dark red flowers and curving green vines. The shape was simplistic enough, but the decor along the outside would take a steady hand. She might even add in a lip wrap to match the green vine... Or maybe the red roses... It was an option.

The second was an artistic piece--a glass vase boasting a glass rose. It would be a tricky piece for she'd want the green stem to be visible within the vase, which would be simple in make and a pale blue in color. The rose would be an ethereal purple with petals that curved down and inward. Difficult and it would take her a good deal more time than she should probably be spending at the furnace that evening, but the idea had struck her and now she wanted to run with it...

Planned Pieces:
- Pink, curving vase painted with dark red flowers and green vines [Completed]
- Pale blue vase with a glass rose in it [Completed]
- Blue candlesticks with clear figurine (dolphin) in center, supporting candle holder [Completed]
- Crystal vase, simple, engraved [Completed]

[Iseult Fluersdotter]

Iseult started on the glass rose first. More precisely, she began on the vase that would hold the glass rose. She dipped her blowpipe into the furnace and gathered a significant amount of glass. Too much. She held the pipe upside down and let some drip off into a waiting bucket. She then rolled the blowpipe as she brought it into a horizontal position and reheated the globule at the end.

Orange and glowing, she brought the heated glass over to the marver and began to roll it out, smoothing the glass so that it fell evenly, angling her rolls slightly so that it began to give the glass a bit of shape. For this piece she wanted a slightly angular look, with the bottom a little more narrow, widening towards the middle, then narrowing again at the top.

She reheated the glass and carried it over to the colors she'd arranged on the table for herself. She'd chosen a simple blue powder that would ripen into a deep sea-blue after the vessel was cooled. She rolled the piece in the powder, ensuring that most of it was covered, then reheated the vessel again in the furnace, letting the powders evenly distribute and melt into the glass. Now as the glass would cool the blue would apparent beneath the otherwise bright orange glow of molten glass.

Note:
- Started: Rose Vase

[Iseult Fluersdotter]

But the piece was not ready to cool for there was still much to be done with it.

Iseult rolled the piece along the marver once, twice, then reheated it and stood alongside the bench. She angled the blowpipe against the metal arms and settled her mouth against the opening closest her, still mindful of the globule to keep the pipe rolling back and forth so that it did not unevenly distribute itself. She blew a steady stream of air into the vessel and it expanded slowly. She breaked, rolled the pipe, then blew more air into it. She did not want it to be too big or too expansive--she wanted a flatter, narrow side, after all.

She reheated the piece and sat down at the bench to use the paddles to work at the shape of the piece. She smoothed out the edges as the glass began to gradually cool. While she did not want the piece completely cooled, for obvious reasons, she did not want it at its utmost malleable either. So as it cooled she worked to smooth and narrow the sides, bringing them in a little and making them a little flat rather than rounded.

She worked away at the basic shape until she felt it completed. She set aside the paddle and picked up the jacks. She used them to pinch the mouth line along the neck of the vessel where blowpipe met glass and she then dribbled water into the new slit. It was now ready for the transfer and the final stages of shaping.

[Iseult Fluersdotter]

She snapped the piece from the blowpipe after setting the tip of the punty against the glass and resumed rotating the pipe against the bench arms after reheating the vessel in the furnace. She picked up the jacks and inserted them into the opening created with the separation, widening the mouth just slightly so that a slip of a rose could be inserted in to it. There was not much to be done there, but she did wish to shape the side of the vase.

Using the paddles and the jacks, she flattened out the vase's sides so that they were box-like in shape, not rounded. It was a small piece, simple. It did not take long for the shape to blossom beneath the manipulation of the tools in her fingers and she separated the piece from the punty once it had been completed, placing the vase into the garage where it would wait as she fashioned the rose to be placed within it.

Discarding the punty, Iseult picked up the blowpipe and returned to the furnace, gathering glass and rolling it out along the marver. Not that it was completely necessary for this. She decided to work on the stem first and rolled the gathered glass in the green pigment coloring. She sat down at her bench with a handful of tools set up around her, but she focused on the tweezers, picking them from the metal lot and squeezing at the globule at the tip of the blowpipe.

[Iseult Fluersdotter]

She pulled the glass from the concentrated globule and it elongated. There was no structure in this initial pull, just a grab of the glass, moving it in such a fashion that, having exposed it, she could work with it as she pleased. She had only gathered a little glass and so it was narrow, not a lot that she had drawn. Still, it needed shaped.

Using a narrow mold, Iseult squeezed the mold around the glass, giving it a rounded shape like the stem of a rose. The glass was beginning to cool and while it would not yet find that hard consistency--that took many candlemarks--if left to cool for too long it would be beyond shaping. But she had time and Iseult carefully, using the edge of the tweezers, pushed the stem so that it sat skewed a little to the left, from her perspective.

Iseult then clipped the stem free, letting it lay in its curved fashion on the bench. She stood and reheated the green globule at the tip of the blowpipe and when she sat down again she dripped the glass onto the detached stem in several places, creating the pointed thorns with the manipulation of her tools to sharpen and curve the small tips. She touched the piece off with a single leaf, to which she added detail by picking up a crimping tool and pressing it so that it possessed ripples. This leaf was towards the top of the stem where the rose would be nestled.

The stem was then placed into the garage in a compartment separate from the vase and Iseult turned back to the furnace, picking up her blowpipe and scraping off the remaining green glass into a bucket before gathering more raw molten material.

[Iseult Fluersdotter]

The glass she gathered was again a small amount and this time Iseult rolled it in a powder that would turn the glass purple. As she had done with the stem, she gave the unshaped globule minimal shape before she sat down at the bench. This would take a good deal more consideration as she worked with it and she hesitated a little as she turned the blowpipe along the bench arms, studying the glass at the end of the pipe, trying to decide what would work best.

Because she could not wait too long, Iseult picked up the jacks and created a slight separation of a good portion of the glass from what clung to the very tip of the blowpipe. She then put those aside in favor of the tweezers, a small set that she could use to easily manipulate the glass, creating folds of petals that curled outward and down.

Carefully, and spacing out her shaping of the glass with trips to the furnace, Iseult opened the rose bloom, pulling out the petals and using the edge of the tweezers to give the bloom curves along their edges. One by one these petals came into life and Iseult completed the blossom with petals on the inside that were not completely unfurled. She thought, for a moment, of the iced roses in the ice garden and how not unlike glass those were, but she did not want to risk adding a second layer of clear glass to this, fearing it would turn out like a paperweight.

She stood and, holding the blowpipe with the rose, took the stem from the garage. Setting it carefully on the bench, Iseult maneuvered the glass rose blossom so that the vaguely flattened base connected with the tip of the stem. She severed the blossom from the blowpipe and finally she had a completed rose.

[Iseult Fluersdotter]

She worked a little on smoothing out the area where the two had been connected before retrieving the vase from the garage. Carefully she inserted the stem, holding the newly connected blossom just below the rose with a set of diamond shears, and as she found just where she thought it would look perfect, she released the stem, pressing the green piece against the vase, and closed the diamond shears around the neck of the vase. She squeezed until the vase neck closed around the stem, securing it in place, and using the edge of a paddle, she fixed the mouth of the vessel until it was, she thought, perfect. Or somewhat perfect.

Iseult carried the completed vessel over to the annealer and placed it inside with the other cooling pieces. She shut the door behind it and returned to her work station, picking up the blowpipe and shaving off the remaining glass. She studied the next drawing, remembering the plan that she had formulated for this piece, and turned back to the furnace.

She began again, gathering glass at the tip, rolling it on the marver to begin its basic shape and smoothing away the irregularities. She rolled it next in the powders that would give the glass a reddish tint, making sure to get an even coating, and held the piece in the furnace, rotating, waiting for the powder to adhere and melt into the glass.

Note:
- Completed: Rose vase
- Started: Pink vase

[Iseult Fluersdotter]

With the powder coating the raw glass, sinking into the material, Iseult rolled it over the marver again, further distributing the color she had just added, and smoothing away any lumps that had formed during the coloring process. Once she was certain of the color distribution, Iseult moved over to the bench and angled the blowpipe against the arms, and as she rotated the pipe she blew a steady stream of air into the glass at the end of the pipe.

The glass at the end bubbled as air pocketed inside, the shape expanding even as Iseult still very carefully rotated the pipe on the metal arms. She stopped and carried the pipe back over to the furnace, sticking the pipe in and reheating the glass at the tip. She waited a few moments for it to warm up again before lifting it out and again pushing air through the pipe into the glass.

She did this until the glass had expanded wide enough to her liking. When it was, she sat down at the bench and, her palm flat against the pipe as she rolled it along the arms, she held damp papers against the bottom of the glass and carefully smoothed out the sides. With the paper she minded its shaping too, making sure it did not fall too much to one side or collapse one way or the other. It was careful manipulation of the vase's body, which she furthered by picking up the tongs and squeezing them close near the mouth of the vase. She used their edge to create the curving shape she desired, giving the vase a slight 'S' form that was thicker towards the bottom and slighter towards the top.

[Iseult Fluersdotter]

The shaping was not difficult. She had made notes that this vase would be more intricate in the painting she would do on its body once it was cool and hardened. Once she had the basic shape done, Iseult picked up the jacks and squeezed them around the mouth of the vase, cutting in the indentations that would allow her to transfer the piece from the blowpipe to the punty.

With the jacks aside, she dribbled water on the lines and snatched up the punty from nearby. Carefully, she guided the punty so that it fixed to the base of her vase and with the deft flick of her wrist flat against the blowpipe, the vase snapped off the first pipe, its weight dragging down the second. She was careful in her maneuvering of this piece as she set aside the blowpipe and held up the punty.

She reheated the piece in the furnace before she again sat down at the bench to continue shaping the vase. She used the jacks, inserting them into the vase and using these to widen its mouth. She gave the lips some flare, a minor addition to the vase, one she did not elaborate on overmuch. She had little left to take care of this point, just the shaping of the mouth, and she worked her way through it with the quick efficiency of an individual who had shaped vases such as this since she had first begun her work back in Trysvale.

Iseult relaxed into the familiar working and soon the piece was shaped to a point that pleased her. She leaned back, inspecting it and reached out to pick up some tweezers. She soaked them and dripped the water over the joining of the punty and the glass, turning the glass upside down so that she could separate them without breaking the glass.

Once they were apart, Iseult picked it up with her thickly gloved hands and carried it over to the annealer, where she placed it alongside the vase and the rose she had just fashioned moments a go. Once the door she was shut carefully behind it, Iseult returned back to bench at the sketching table and bent over the drawings she had marked across the pages. There were several more she could start tonight. Or perhaps leave until the next evening. That might be best, she decided. The two vases she'd already crafted had stolen more than one candlemark of her own evening.

She nodded slightly and picked up her drawings, folded the page, and set it off to the side amidst her own gear. Tomorrow she would start the crystal vase and the candlesticks.

Semi Completed: Pink Vase

[Iseult Fluersdotter]

Started: Crystal vase

The following brightening, after almost everyone else had left, Iseult remained in the workplace, arranging her section of the glassworks to her liking for the two jobs she had in mind that darkening: A pair of blue candlesticks augmented by some carefully crafted dolphins, and a vase made of crystal to be further worked on once the piece had cooled and hardened. Of the two, the vase would be eased for the shape would be simple. She had drawn the vase with a base that narrowed slightly and widened as the piece got towards the center before again narrowing slightly towards the top. It would be pure crystal, devoid of color, the body thick so that it allowed space for her to later engrave the outsides with a turning wheel.

This was the one that she started with, needing no drawing to give her a visual aid in what she had thought of to do. She picked up her blowpipe and made her way over to the crystal furnaces. It was important that the crystal was done separately from the other glass, due to the lead content that went into the raw material. Lead made it crystal, made the glass heavy and soft to cut.

She dipped her blowpipe into the furnace and coated the tip with a lump of the material. She brought it back out and began to shape it, bringing it over the marver to smooth it out. More lead meant the material was more elastic. Too much lead and a glassblower would have too much trouble molding the piece into the desired shape. She allowed the crystal to cool more than she might have ordinary glass for it allowed her an easier time to shape it as she moved between the furnace and the bench, using her jacks to curve the sides as she blew air through the blowpipe into the hulk of the vase.

[Iseult Fluersdotter]

Just like the pink vase she had crafted the darkening before, there was familiarity in the shaping of the vase at the end of her blowpipe. It was a simple shape. The material was what made it somewhat more of a thing to focus on with the utmost concentration. The crystal was easy to manipulate and just one poor movement on her part could mean she would have to start over again.

She curved the jacks carefully around the outside of the piece to smooth out the sides, a task far more effective with the white papers she dared to use next. The papers she curved around the expanded piece did much to cool the piece right then and made it easier for Iseult, gave her less of a worry as the piece gradually began to harden. But she could not let it harden too much least she destroy what she had worked on.

She finished giving it the shape she had desired, using a paddle to flatten out the base of the piece before she used the jacks to carve the lines near the mouth. She fixed the punty at the base and dribbled water over the lines, smacking her wrist against the blowpipe to once again transfer a piece from blowpipe to punty. It came away easily and Iseult reheated the vase in the furnace for a shorter length of time than she would have an ordinary piece.