Summer Day

Summer Day
Photo credit ~ Daniel Krucoff

It has been a long winter and late spring here in Colorado. Wishful thinking when I created this bowl with thoughts of summer and the colors I recall seeing on those warm summer days. This bowl represents my thoughts about green grasses along with a smattering of dandelions!

This is one of my bowls that will be available at the Palmer Lake Artists Group's Fine Art Show starting this Wednesday, June 2.

I used all Bullseye glasses for this piece. There are a couple of new yellows & greens that I picked up on my recent visit to D & L Art Glass.

I'm happy to report that over the past week, the weather has warmed to the point where our Aspens have sprung to life with that lovely shade of new growth green. More inspirations thanks to the warmer weather.

Until next time, aspire to be more as an artist and a person.

Frank Lloyd Wright ~Tributes

Photo credit ~ Daniel Krucoff

I've been experimenting a bit. I am a huge fan of Frank Lloyd Wright and while these didn't exactly turn out as I had hoped, they are a start. I have several books on his works and thought it would be fun to take a mini view of one of his designs. I'll keep working on this concept and maybe I'll hit on something that is a better representation of what I had planned to do.

The white background was fully fused to a clear blank. Then I added the color elements and just tack fused them so they would remain raised rather than sink into the white glass as they would have with a full fuse. I find it intriguing that the tack fuse takes the glass up to a temperature sufficiently high to bond with the surface of the base piece, but not 'melt' completely into it. Another benefit with tack fusing is it just starts to round out the edges of the pieces ever so lightly and gives them a bit of a watery appearance.

My original intent was to have rusts and greens, but the striker glass I used in this one turned more red and rust. Used my favorite Bullseye glasses again. I really like strikers because they change colors in the fusing process and don't always look like the colors they are prior to fusing. Since it was an experiment I wasn't worried about the color shift and in this case they turned out a bit more Christmasy than a Frank Lloyd Wright-ish color scheme.

I haven't given up on this concept. Currently I'm working on projects for an exhibit in August, so I have to set experiments aside and focus. I'll pick up on this again once I have my work done for the exhibit.

Until next time, aspire to be more as an artist and person.

Glam

Glam
Photo credit ~ Daniel Krucoff

Next month will be the annual Palmer Lake Artists Group Spring Show. It will be held at the Tri-Lakes Center for the Arts in Palmer Lake, Colorado. Many of you know this is one of my favorite local venues for art shows. The turn out is good and the opening reception has live music.

This is one of my entries in the show. Crinklized dichroic pieces that I've wire wrapped in Argentium Silver. As I looked at the matching earrings and pendant, all I could think of was glamourous....so I decided to name these Glam.

I have a couple of fused glass bowls that will be in the show too and I will post pictures of those later.

In the meantime, if you are looking for a nice diversion, the opening reception for this show will be Friday, June 11 from 5 - 8 PM at the Tri-Lakes Center for the Arts in Palmer Lake, Colorado.

Until next time, aspire to be more as an artist and a person

The Opening Reception

Cottonwood Center for the Arts

This in the entrance for the Cottonwood Center. It is a really nice venue.

Once again our weather challenged and snow was the prelude for the show. Fortunately, it was just cold and light snow, so that didn't deter folks from coming to the opening reception. There was a steady stream of people to view the work of the Glass Artists of the Pikes Peak Region (GAPPR), along with other glass artists in the area. I think there is some great talent in GAPPR and that definitely showed.

I'll let the pictures I took speak for themselves, although I will add a few comments here and there.








The center stained glass window of an elk with mountains in the background was my favorite piece of the evening. I had a chance to talk with the artist who did this piece and her work is lovely. She has a definite style with mountains and I think it is great.


I have two of my bowls in the show. Here's a shot of Winter on its pedestal directly below the stained glass window. My bowl, Autumn, was there too, but I neglected to get a shot of it.



I was really intrigued by this piece. The artist did a lovely scene of aspens in a fused work and then 'framed' it in aspen branches. It was a great piece in my opinion and won 3rd place, although if I had been the judge I would have given it first place in the fused glass category.



What's that? There appears to be a blue ribbon here.....


Yes, that is my wire wrapped glass jewelry and one of my earrings, Whisper, won first place in the jewelry category. A very pleasant surprise. And I had several opportunities to observe people intensely looking at my wire wraps. It was fun to be that 'fly on the wall' as people seemed to be captivated by them. I'm still not comfortable approaching people in those settings to see if they had questions. I guess I need to work on that.



These are only a few of the pictures I took. If you would like to see more, here is the link to the album I created on Facebook.

It was a nice evening, good to see so many people out and about. The show runs through May 21st and if you are in the area, I think it is worth seeing.

Until next time, aspire to be more as an artist and a person.