Irresistible

Another of the crinklized dichroic pendants wire wrapped. This one has a teal to magenta color shift depending on the light. It's hard for me to pick a favorite out of these as I think this glass from Coatings by Sandburg is so beautiful. I think the textured surface adds so much to the glass' ability to catch and reflect light even more than normal. When I looked at this, all I could think was 'Irresistible' so that's its title.

I experimented with my wire wrapping too and added a few different swirls. My approach probably is not terribly conventional, as I just look at a piece and it sort of 'tells' me where the wire should go....most of the time that works, other times...not so much and the wrap goes in the recycle pile. I chalk that up to developing my wire art style.

And I am working on a pair of earrings but they are not quite done, so I hope to post a picture of them this weekend.

Blue Beauty - The First Wire Wrapped Crinkelized Pendant

A little while ago you may recall I did a test run of the new Crinklized Dichroic from Coatings by Sandburg (CBS). They've been 'patiently' waiting for me to start wire wrapping them and I finally have. This is the first one, and I'm calling it Blue Beauty. Pictures really don't do it justice. This new crinklized glass is so beautiful. It's richly colored and has a lot of sparkle. This is a deep turquoise blue. Hope you like it as much as I do!

More Stringers

I worked on another batch of stringers Sunday afternoon. These are a few that I find very interesting and they have given me an idea for another bowl. Variations were created by mixing different colors of glass, twisting the glass 'strings' while they were still molten (I wear protective gloves), and for some just pulling them with no twists to see what color is present when left alone.

This group was a mixture of clear, navy transparent, and marzipan. All Bullseye glass, of course!

Eclipse of the Black Moon

I started work on another piece this weekend and took some work in progress pictures. It's not finished and is waiting in line behind "Hues of Nature" for coldworking.

I'm calling this one "Eclipse of the Black Moon". This first picture shows how it looked after the fusing was complete, the fiber dam in place that kept it at the 3/8" depth.

After my unsuccessful columbine piece, I decided to go more abstract and utilize some of the stringers I've been making over the past couple of months. I had this design in my head that involved red and black. When fusing black, you have to be careful so the black doesn't overwhelm the piece in the process. This is close to what I was thinking about in terms of imagery and just started to evolve into this design as I worked with the stringers.

This rich red Bullseye that became the background. I added some black, rust, and amber stringers. I layered a circle of black with a circle of red on top, and a few more stringers. I took a photo before the fusing to show how the stringers were place upon the surface of the top piece of glass.



This photo was also taken after the fusing and shows how I sandwiched a dark gray between two of the reds so from the side it will also have something of interest.

I'm also considering a umber paint wash that I'll use on the surface and then add some more effects to emphasize the glass elements. I'll add that once I'm done with the coldworking.

Once all the prep work is done, then the last step will be to slump this in a 8" square dish mold that I have.

Stay tuned for more pics ...... :)

"A Little Bit Of Twilight"

A few weeks ago, a friend approached me about donating a piece of my work for a silent auction at the school her daughter attends. The purpose of the auction is to help raise money for the art department because teaching art isn't deemed as something worthy of funding. The parents still want their children to learn art. Not only does that inspire creativity, but it also helps them with their other studies.

Of course I said yes and this is the piece I'm donating. I call it "A Little Bit of Twilight".

Websites Updated

It's been another busy weekend. I guess I just need to accept the fact that when you work at a full time, day job, the weekends will ALWAYS be busy.

I've started coldworking the Hues of Nature bowl. Nothing significant to report at this time, except that I continue to be happy with its progress.

I started a new project today, this one is an abstract of three columbines. It's provided a few challenges and I started to take pictures of the progress. I will post these as I have the build stage finished and it's ready to go in the kiln.

Ok, I'm just a glass addict! But that's a good thing right? Today I couldn't resist doing another batch of stringers. This time, a taupe color, from a previously failed attempt at fusing something. So, I had a lot of fun shaping the molten glass strings as they flowed from my little kiln. Nice diversion.

And throughout the course of this weekend, I've been updating my personal website and our joint studio website. This can be an never ending task, but I'm happy with the updates to the jewelry, stained glass, and kilnwork galleries. If you feel like it, please check them out and give me any feedback. I trust my artist friends.

Thank you all. Make it a wonderful week of creativity!!!

Etsy Redefine Your Style Showcase Today

I purchased another showcase spot with Etsy. Today I'm in the Redefine Your Style Showcase. In this screen shot, I clicked on my item, a pendant called Twilight Begins, so you can see how it pops out into a little larger display with information about it. I liked the idea of wrapping this one so that the emphasis was placed on an more horizontal plane than vertical.

If you have a chance, check out the showcase as I think there are lots of interesting items.

The Planet Neptune ~~ Embellished

It's done and even if I do say so myself, I think it is beautiful. The piece, formerly known as the blue bowl, is finished. I kept thinking it looked like a planet and after some discussion with my husband, he said it was blue like the planet Neptune. So now it has a title..."The Planet Neptune ~~ Embellished". The reason I added the embellished part of this is, with the copper inclusions and rust colored squiggles, there were some artistic liberties taken on my part. I almost think I may be finding that abstract part of my creativity! :)

I thought I should include a picture of Neptune as reference. I like the similarities.

As a footnote, during the coldworking process, I did expose one of the trapped air bubbles. That happened on the edge that I worked so hard to define. Hopefully it won't be viewed as a flaw, as it isn't, it's just part of the piece.

Now I'm working on Hues of Nature. That one is 1/2" thick. Neptune is 3/8" thick. I just love the weight to these bowls.

Coldworking and Fire Polishing

I'm getting closer to finishing this piece. Tonight I got back to the coldwork needed to finish the edge of the blue bowl. I ordered a couple of additional wet belts for my sander in various grits to help with the coldworking and those belts arrived last week.

Tonight I was able to go through a series of belts, from a 60 grit to 800 grit, and get the edge finished. I did a slight bevel on the top and bottom edge which should smooth even more during the fire polish.

The reason for fire polishing is to help round the glass edge a little more, smooth it and make it nice and glossy.

The finishing work went smoothly and much easier than my previous attempts. I think I'm becoming a coldworking believer. In the Kent Lauer, Faceted Dichroic Pendant class, Kent told me it wouldn't take much time at all to develop coldworking skills. Of course, being the Master Beveler that he is, he was right!

Tonight I'm completing the fire polish stage, so the edge will no longer have a mat appearance and should be glossy. I hope I'm happy with the results when I open the kiln tomorrow to check it.

After that, I will be ready to complete the final stage for this piece, the slumping into the bowl mold to complete the project. I learned a lot from this bowl and that seems to be the norm with any project I work on.

I will move on to the Hues of Nature piece next for the finishing work it needs.

During all of this, I've been revamping our studio website, along with my personal website. All this and a day job too! Art has captured my soul and I don't think I could live without being creative. Here's wishing all of you inspirations for your work too!

Crinklized Dichroic

Coatings by Sandburg (CBS) has come out with a new addition to their line of dichroic glass, crinklized dichroic. I ordered a little of it and my shipment arrived a week ago. Last weekend, I did a small test firing to see how this looked and I like the brilliance of it after being fired.

This first photo is after the firing and my pictures are not as good as the ones CBS has on their website. It does have a very nice crinkle texture too it. And it is not rough as one would think, so I feel it will be very nice for jewelry. I plan on wire wrapping these pieces.

The second photo shows how it looked before it was fired and it looks just like ordinary dichroic glass.

I plan on doing a little more experimenting with it. CBS recommends that you take it up to at least 1475 F and you can go even higher to have more of the crinkled effect. They say it is meant to be uncapped, that is, no need to put a clear glass cap over the top of it as I like to do with other dichroic (for depth). But I may just try a sample to see what it looks like. If it is capped, it won't crinkle and that does defeat the purpose of using the glass.

I do enjoy trying out new products. I think this is a wonderful addition to CBS's line of dichroic art glass.

** As a footnote regarding my results from the Etsy showcase yesterday, it didn't generate any sales yet. I did see an increase in traffic, in people who marked my shop a favorite, and in number of views for some of the items I featured. For now I'll continue to chalk this up to gaining exposure and perservance.

Etsy Celebrations and Glamour Showcase Today

Today, I'm in one of Etsy's Showcases. This one is called Celebrations and Glamour. I took this screen shot this morning where I'm featuring one of my larger wire wrapped pendants, "My Lady". Throughout the day, I will probably change out which pendent will be my main item, but I thought I would start out with this one to keep with the theme. There's LOTS of gorgeous stuff in this showcase today, so I think it's well worth a look.

I decided it was time to purchase a couple of these time slots in Etsy and see what happens. I've been reading their blogs and feature articles about Etsy success stories and it seems that these showcases help promote your business. So I'm going to continue to try this approach for a while and see what happens. Wish me luck! :)

Hues of Nature, post-fuse

Here is 'Hues of Nature' fused. I am very happy with the results. Some of the glass strips that I used have a lot of depth, so the lines did not turn out completely straight. Considering that this is something earthy and organic, I think it is a great initial result.

I have some coldworking to do. Then I'll decide if I want to do a fire polish before the slump into the bowl form.

Right now, I just couldn't be happier with how this has turned out.

The Continued Evolution

The blue bowl continues to evolve. I'm happy with the results. I like the addition of the rust colored stringers...they compliment the copper mesh inclusions.

The offending chip has disappeared and the edges are nice too. Now I will start the coldworking process again. I'll have to see how things look when I'm done coldworking the edge; at that point I'll have to decide if I want to do a fire polish. Once all of that is done, then it can be slumped into the bowl mold and then it should be done!

I'm thinking about calling this 'A Crazy Blue World'....or something like that. :)

Evolution of the Blue Bowl

You may recall that in my last post about the blue bowl, I stopped working on it as I was getting tired and started to make mistakes. One of the things that happened was the bowl slipped from my rubber gloves and hit the edge of the sink. A small chip occurred and I thought with the right amount of coldworking, I could eliminated it. Well, sadly the chip went too far into the surface and I don't want to cut down the diameter of the bowl that far. So I've decided to take another approach and the bowl is evolving.


The top picture shows my latest idea. I'm going to take some of the curled stringers I made this past weekend and add them to the surface of the bowl. I like the contrast of the straight lines and these curly stringers. This is just my initial pass tonight and I want to search through the stringers I created to find the best ones suited for what I want to do next. I believe that fusing this piece again will eliminate the chip and provide a nice surface. Of course, this means that I will have to create another dam for the fusing process, to hold the glass at the 3/8" thickness it has now. I'll take a pre-fuse picture to show how this will work. And I will lose all of the coldworking efforts I have put into this piece, but I think that is ok because I should be able to salvage the piece and the accident may cause this to turn into a much more interesting end product! I hope.

I tried to take a picture of the offending chip. It doesn't show up very well, but the yellow arrow is pointing to it. It's an imperfection that is just unacceptable and I will hope my attempt at fusing again will remedy it.




I also took a picture of the edge after I had completed some of the coldworking. It's much smoother, and has started to take on a nice mat finish. I will still have to redo this after the fuse, but that's ok too. I had planned on a fire polish to shine things up after the coldworking anyway.

So, as all of us have done, we learn from our mistakes and can sometimes turn them into something better. I certainly hope that will be the case for this blue bowl. I'm becoming rather fond of it. The more I look at it, I'm reminded of a beautiful blue planet with swirling clouds.

Blue Bowl - Progress

These are pictures I took in the various stages of the finish work I'm doing for the blue bowl. I'm still working on it, but thought I would post some of what I've completed so far.

The first picture shows the glass 'icicles' that formed during the fusing process. I used a steel ring to act as a dam so the glass would remain at its depth of 3/8". Glass is like water, it likes to seek it's level and when fusing..... glass wants to find a thickness of 1/4", so when I want to make a piece thicker, I have to use a dam to contain/stop it from spreading. All these glass peaks are pretty sharp and nasty....they needed to be ground off before I could start using the wet belt sander to finish the edge. I used my trusty Glastar grinder and eliminated all of them. The glass peaks could tear up a sander belt and eliminating them makes it much safer to handle the piece too!

Next I used a circle template, 10" in diameter. I placed the template underneath the glass and using my light table, I can see the circle I want to have for my finished piece. There are yellow arrows pointing to the black line I drew with the aid of the template. I used a Sharpie and covered the line with paste wax so it would stay intact while I used my glass saw to cut the circle shape.



This is me with my kevlar glove, using my Taurus III ring saw to cut the finished circle shape. Love my saw. I really enjoy the benefits of all the tools I use to create glass work.









This is the completed circle after the saw work was done.











And below is the edge left after cutting the circle. Now I am in the process of using my wet belt sander to create a nice mat finish, which will eliminate the whitish film on the edge that you see in this photo. I don't have a high end coldworking machine yet, but I will get the job done. And I will probably do a fire polish on this piece when I'm done with the coldworking so it will have a nice, reflective sheen. If I had the more advanced machine, I would be able to polish the surface without needing a fire polish.





So, I reached a point tonight where I was starting to make mistakes and I knew it was time to quit. I think I'm still tired from all the things I did this weekend, along with a full day at the regular office job. Once I'm done with the coldworking phase, I'll report back and post another picture.

Happy creating everyone!

Fun

This is the mass of stringers I created this afternoon. I suppose it looks a little strange; there's wonderful beauty in that mass of glass strings!

I did a lot today. One of my bonus projects was making stringers. It's so nice that my failed fused projects can be recycled and used again. This batch came from one of my first attempts to slump a vase. I misunderstood some things about the process and the vase was lost. So, I broke it into pieces and saved them for use in a screen melt or to create stringers.

While I was cleaning the studio yesterday, I ran across my box of recycle glass and decided it would be great fun to create stringers with this glass. The glass is a lovely shade of deep rusty orange and because of some of the prior inclusions for the vase, I have some pieces with color variations.


This is how things looked as I loaded a clay pot filled with the broken pieces and set it in the kiln this morning. Once heated, the glass flows through the hole in the bottom of the pot and the fiberboard it sits on. I had such fun, pulling, twisting, shaping the glass while it was in its molten form.






Here's a close up of some of the end results. I love the variety of thickness, shapes, and color. Now I will use these in other fused projects as they add a lot to plates, bowls, even jewelry designs!

Order is Back in the Studio

I'm pleased to report that it actually took less time than I thought to re-gain order in my studio. Before I started this clean up, I didn't have one clutter free surface. Now my plan/goal is to keep things as close to this as possible. One of the keys for me will be to put things back as I use them. I have locations for things better defined. The peg boards were added this fall in one of my last attempts to reorganize and they helped, but clutter seems to multiply. I've conquered it for now.

Here's the tour of the studio.

This view shows my light table in the foreground. It doubles as a place where I do my wire wrapping. Right now it is set up for wire wrapping and I have the surface covered with the cloth I keep in place to prevent beads, tools, glass from rolling around. To the left is my large work surface (a Koala cutting table on rollers). It's the perfect height for me...I'm a little over 5' 7" and this is about 36" high so it keeps me from bending over too much to work. The floors are stained and sealed concrete, so I have a couple of anti-fatigue mats that I can stand on for long periods of time. BIG help. I have two grid glass cutting systems set up on that table, covered with a vinyl table cloth to protect the surface from water spray when I'm grinding. The grid systems are on either side of the glass grinder. To the right is another large work table. I generally use its surface as a spot to assemble stained glass windows or build items that are going into the kiln.

Another view of my two largest work surfaces. Lots of storage under each. I have an Ott-Lite on rollers that gives the best light of any, so I use it a lot for detail work.









This gives a better view of my light table where I wire wrap. I also use the light table to cut stained glass as it allows me to have a good idea of what light will look like coming through the glass. I can pick and choose which section of the glass will best represent what I want in a design.

Yes, I have a TV in here. I listen to lots of movies or music while I work. Depends on my mood. I can't and don't actually sit and watch movies as I just can't do that and work. I just like to have something on in the background. And when I need a break, then I'll watch whatever scene is on.... I get a lot of use out of DVDs.



This last view shows my overflowing glass bins. The sad thing.....this isn't all of my glass. Yep, I'm a glass-aholic! These are really great storage bins for the large sheets of glass. Dan and I built them a few years ago, from a design given in the book "How to Design Your Stained Glass Studio". Great little book, but I don't think it's in print anymore.


And no picture of the studio would be complete without one of our bassets. I think you can see Newton in the foreground of a couple of these.

It was time well spent and I'm very happy with the results. I've started working on the bowl in preparation for slumping it.

Now, if any of you are up to sharing photos of your studios, that would be GREAT! I know Tracey has. I'd love to see how your work spaces are set up.

Basset Supervision

I jokingly refer to "Basset Supervision" during my work. Here are some photos of the adorable threesome. One of them, sometimes all three, are with me as I work on my glass pieces. When I am cutting large sheets of glass, they are banned from the studio for safety reasons. Any other time, they are welcome company. Newton is the pup...all of 2 years old and the photo of his is just the face shot. Nocturne is fondly referred to as Little Miss. She's the one that is sleeping on the pillows with her tongue out (now that's relaxed!). And Bueller (named after the movie....once we heard Ben Stein's delivery of that name, we knew it would be perfect for a basset name) is sleeping on blankets I have in the studio. Bueller is the most confident dog that Dan & I have ever had.

So these are my basset supervisors. While they may try to claim artistic control of my work, that wouldn't be right. However, they are loyal companions and great snuggle bunnies.

I thought it would be fun to share pictures of the three hounds in my life. I have done some basset tribute windows (in stained glass) for some of the folks responsible for allowing us to have these wonderful dogs in our life, which you can find on the gallery of my website, Kathleen Krucoff Studio. Enjoy! Notice two out of the three are sleeping....something they do very well.