Glass vessels

I've always had a fascination with glass containers of all shapes, sizes, colours, and purposes. Chinese restaurants would have those paper placemats that show all the different kinds of cocktails in their specialized fancy glasses -- I loved those as a kid, I'd even bring them home (the placemats, not the glasses :P)! I especially love perfume bottles and I was so pleased to be able to do a couple illustrations for Best Health magazine last winter that showed new fall fragrances.

And that brings me to these bizarrely shaped alchemical apparatuses (apparati?) Such exotic names, shapes, and mysterious purposes. I eventually want to do an illustration based around them, but for now here are the sketches!

 

Of course, I couldn't leave out this sketch of cocktail glasses, based on those awesome paper placemats. Here in Calgary we've got three different kinds of glasses: Ikea coloured plastic tumblers, Ikea glass drinking glasses, and Ikea mugs. Wouldn't it be nice to have a pousse-café glass filled with liquids of different densities, producing a beguiling rainbow effect?