Messier 83 - Spiral Galaxy

This is the start of a new bowl. It just came out of the kiln today and I'm really happy with the result so far. Another thick piece, this is about 1/2" deep and almost 14" in diameter. I need to clean the edge before I start the coldworking process.

The inspiration for the design was born from a Hubble photograph of a Spiral Galaxy called Messier 83. The color scheme is my choice and I wanted that spiral effect. I used more frit this time and my biggest concern was getting the fiber dam to hold as this fused. As a result I used a TON of straight pins and unfortunately some of the tips became embedded in the edge. This isn't really a problem as I will clean up the circle shape with my trusty Taurus 3 ring saw and that will eliminate any residual pins.

The next time I photograph this will be after it's slumped in the bowl. I will be entering this in the Palmer Lake Art Group's June show at Tri-Lakes Center for the Arts. Looking forward to it.

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!

Christmas Ornaments

This week I delivered two different sets of special ordered Christmas ornaments.



The first was a set of 5 Christmas trees. I really enjoyed how these turned out as I was able to layer about 5 gradient sizes of glass to produce the end result. One of the techniques I learned in my Patty Gray class last month.





The second was a dozen Texas stars. They varied in outcome which made each one very unique. During my 'experiments' I ran out of the medium sized pre-cut Wasser stars and had to improvise with a medium red star with a smaller white star on top of it. Some are going to folks in Texas as gifts, others are remaining here in Colorado with some transplanted Texans.

All I can say is I couldn't have produced the stars with out the aid of my trusty Taurus III Ring Saw.

I really enjoy the looks on people's faces, when I have the opportunity to witness their expressions the first time they see something they've ordered from me.