Stained glass cookie...

I made a cookie using dough and boiled sweets...

I filled the spaces with crushed sweets...

Burnt...

But it looks well with light shone through?

Second attempt worked out perfectly...

Transparency and shadow...

I had a bit of a play around with images on acetates, light and the shadows cast...

The process has given an almost 3D effect.

Transparent 3D...

My next task was to take on a 3D piece including both my initial stained glass inspiration and my recent observations of 'men at work'.
I decided to use this image as a starting point:

I wanted to make the piece entirely transparent so I made it from acetate. First things first, I had to make a simple box so I mapped out the plan on paper first and constructed it to make sure it was right.

Next I constructed it from acetate, cutting a hole for a second smaller box to be inserted.

The second box is like the 'manhole' that the workers are inside. I added flaps to it to act as the manhole covers.
Next I constructed the traffic cones and railings:

Then to make the men..... I only had a 2D view of them so I had to use a little artistic licence? I drew out the normal view and then came up with a side view, cut slices into them and slotted them together.

To add a little bit of interest to the piece I got a telephone cable and removed the plastic outer cover. I inserted into the space between the 2 boxes and had the ends coming into the inner box. This worked well as the men were working for eircom. It also added a bit of colour without it being too overpowering.

And then I put together the final piece......

Stress...

An idea came to me one evening to try and visually represent the feeling of stress. Everybody has a million and one things going on in their lives at any one point, and while it is easy to see clearly when focusing on one thing at a time, everything gets a bit jumbled up and 'messy' when there are more and more issues to focus on simultaneously.
So I took 4 standard images, each representing a different aspect of everyday urban life; Family, Work, Money/Bills and Travel.
Each of the images are singularly clear and easily identifiable but when layered on top of each other they become something else.

 These images were created pretty simply by photocopying the acetates layered on top of each other in different ways. The images have transformed into a harsh, aggressive, confusing disarray.

 Here the images are mounted in foam board.

Casting...

My next step was to try and make an actual stained glass image. I figured (rightly or wrongly?) that it would be pretty difficult to work with real glass so I decided to work with resin instead.
I first drew out the image onto wood and had the individual segments cut out. I fixed them to a board and made a silicone cast of the pieces.

 Once the cast was ready I tested a few of the segments using wax.

It worked pretty well so the next step is to use resin. I made a plan of which segments required what concentration of pigment.

Next I filled the segments sequentially, adding more pigment as I went along to intensify the colour. Unfortunately the reverse of the mold wasn't even so a lot of the resin poured out and what remained in the mold was spread pretty thin so I didn't hold much hope for a successful resin cast.
After removing what segments I could I pieced them together.

 Some pieces cracked, some went missing and some I broke myself but you can get the idea? I really like the effect and there's a lot that could be done with it. I could suspend the pieces from each other and let it rotate like a mobile?

Collage...

A large scale coloured paper collage.