Window To Another World

I call this Window to Another World. There are some really nice transparent Bullseye cranberry and teal glasses that I used as complements to the streakies. I also added clear strips in the construction. The cranberry solid glass section is the 'window' part of this piece.

This is one of my entries for the Palmer Lake Art Group, Spring Fine Art Show that starts on June 2nd. Messier 83 will also be in that show and I'll post a picture of that one soon.

I really like these thick bowls and will always be grateful to Patty Gray for teaching this technique in her class last fall.

It's Alive!

Let me introduce you to "Jade", my new ASW Table Top Machine. She is set up and working now.... and I literally did think "It's Alive!", as if I was Dr Frankenstein bringing this tool to 'life'. It was quite the process and involved more trips to Home Depot than I would have ever thought!

Since I had to set this up in my studio and when we built out house I didn't think I needed a direct water line to the studio (that was wrong), I needed to use a water circulating system to operate the machine. This is a photo of what that circulating system looks like. That involves using a pond pump, flower pot, a rather large rubber trash can, series of tubes and connectors. Initially I was following the directions supplied by the manufacturer. Unfortunately, they didn't contain specs on the type of pump to purchase, so I bought one that was too small. Course, now I can use that to create a bubbling vase out in my flower garden come June as right now the flower garden is covered in about 2' of snow (but that's another story).

Then there was the challenge of connecting the intake and outtake lines, getting the proper connections. Fortunately, the folks as ASW are very nice and helpful. I called and was given the actually make and model of the pond pump to use, which simplified the connection problem and the water output problem. The nice gentlemen at ASW thought all of this should be put out on their website for folks like me and was going to talk to the inventor of this system to have them put it out there. That would be great!

Unfortunately, using this type of system means that I will have to empty the water by hand. Course, even if I had a direct hook up to a water line, I would still have to empty the 'waste' water into a bucket like I've shown here because you can't dump this water down your drain as it would eventually clog with glass particle residue. I can use this water on my plants and things outside, no problem.

I picked Jade up on Monday of this past week and have been putting things in place for her use and Friday afternoon I finally got it up and running! Yesterday I started work on the 4 pieces that were waiting for the coldworking process. Oh my goodness, what a difference this machine has made in my ability to quickly (key word quickly) get down to the finishing process.

She came with a set of 6 finished discs, varying diamond grits (another key word here, diamond!). The discs are pictured here. They have magnetic backings so they fit securely on the disc that rotates. Let me tell you, it is quite the job getting these discs off the platen....I'm sure I'll figure out the technique, but right now it's a challenge. So I worked on "Hues of Nature", "Meteor Showers", "Eclipse of the Black Moon", and "Growing Love". I only got the first grinding phase done and now I need to empty the water and start fresh as I move to the next grit level.

With a circulating system like this, because I'm grinding off the most glass in this first phase, the water has LOTS of ground glass particles. Now most will sink to the bottom of the main bucket, but there still are plenty floating in the water that is being circulated back up to the grinding disc. And those tiny glass particles are ok for this phase of work, but I need to clear them out as I move on in the finishing process so they won't scratch what I'm working on for the next phase.

I find it hard to believe that I took my first coldworking class at D & L last May and I was seriously intimidated by this type of a machine. Then I took Kent Lauer's class in September and Patty Gray's in November. By then I knew that I couldn't do the work I wanted without one of these beauties. So Jade has quickly taken her place in my arsenal of tools and I am in awe of what she can provide to help me with my glass work.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Greetings and here's wishing all of you a very Happy Valentine's Day.

This morning I prepared the blue bowl for its second fusing. Here it is, in the kiln, ready for firing. Taking it back up to full fuse temperature may mean that I will not be able to see the results until later tomorrow afternoon.

I had great fun arranging all the curls on top of it. I believe I have made the right decision and I want to thank Deborah and Karen for their words of encouragement as I re-work this piece to become (hopefully) even better than the original design.

I took a profile view to show how these curls 'stand up' on top of the surface. During the fusing process they will drop and become part of the glass surface. They will retain their circles and curls, but become part of the piece in the fusing process.



The dam, to maintain its 3/8" thickness, is held in place with steel pins. A technique I picked up in Patty Gray's November class at D & L. I couldn't believe that I could use steel pins in my kiln, but I can. As an added safeguard I used some kiln blocks as additional reinforcements to the dam.

Last, but certainly not least, is a picture of two of our three bassets. As I worked on this piece this morning, they kept me company....sleeping on their beds. Newton is on the left, Bueller is the one on the right. As an added bonus, today we went to the big dog show up in Denver and saw lots of our basset friends. Couldn't ask for a better day.

Happy Valentine's Day!

The Weekend Project

I took this photo of what I've been working on this weekend, right before I put it in the kiln. This is my new design for a bowl. I'm trying one of the techniques I learned in the Patty Gray class I took in November of last year.

For this piece, I cut strips of glass and laid them on the 'side' rather than flat. This gives a different view and effect. I alternated two strips of a blue/clear streaky with one strip of clear glass.

Yesterday I was struggling with glass colors and designs. I started on this yesterday afternoon and after some re-working, this is the final design. I'm trying lots of new things with this piece. The most obvious is laying the cut glass strips on their sides. It proved rather challenging to cut them to be the right size as I was laying this in place. I had to re-work things a couple of time.

The other new approach is I have added copper screen inclusions. The photo only shows three copper inclusions well, but there are 4 (I know that digresses from the three point artistic approach). The fourth inclusion is in the lower right section of the circle and is hard to see because it is small and the flash obscured it. They are sandwiched between two layers of clear glass, top and bottom. It will be interesting to see how this copper reacts to the fusing process. It is my understanding that the copper should take on a rusty, red appearance, but after all I have read about copper inclusions, nothing would surprise me color wise...it could turn blue, or even black (I hope it doesn't turn black, but who knows, maybe I'd like that????).

I just hope that this turns out well and all of my time and effort creating the foundation for this bowl won't go to waste. The firing schedule is extra long because of the thickness; it's about 3/8" deep. I have cold working in front of me if this turns out successful, as that will allow me to finish the edges and make sure I have a nice circle for slumping it into the bowl shape. I'm looking forward to seeing how this turns out....that moment when you open the lid of the kiln and go "Great!" or "Back to the drawing board".

Beginnings

I'm so excited. Today I was able to complete my first attempt at Vitrigraph, which is the process where you can create your own stringers of glass. I learned about this in the Patty Gray class that I took this November. Today was the first time I was actually able to try it out for myself. While it may appear to be a huge pain, it's quite fun for someone like myself who loves to work with glass. I have several photos (some thanks to my husband) that will walk through the process. But why not start with the end result first....



This first picture is just a few of the small Curly Qs I created during the process. I'll incorporate them into my new fused glass works as they do create wonderful imagery in the glass. I started with black as it's one of the easiest to work with for this process and they will add nice contrasts to other pieces. My next will be greens, later this week, and I plan to use them for plant stems.



So here's the set up. This is my smaller kiln, the Paragon Caldera. The top and bottom separate from the main unit and it's ideal for small projects like Vitrigraph. It's setting on top of some fiber board on top of a small scaffold out in the garage. And it has been VERY cold out there, so I have a little ceramic heater (to the right of the kiln) to help warm up the area around the kiln until it is ready to fire. The kiln is setting on a 1" thick piece of fiber board (to act as the bottom of the kiln). The fiber board has a 1" circle in the center where a clay pot, filled with glass, sits over it. Once the glass reaches temperature, it will flow through the holes and onto the fiber paper sitting on the floor. But I'm getting ahead of myself.



Last night I loaded a 4" clay pot, yep a clay pot, with a combination of black and clear glass...predominantly black glass. I added the clear to give the black some depth...can't really tell you if it helped or not, but I do like the results. So here is a picture of this pot full of glass, sitting in the kiln ready for firing.

Now I put the lid on the kiln and fire it up. It took a little over 4 hours for it to reach temperature, a blazing 1690 degrees! Once the glass starts to flow, then I'm ready to start shaping it free form.



This next picture shows the glass has just started to exit the kiln base. I have a large black arrow pointing to the first stringer with a large black blob of glass at the bottom of it. You can see I'm dressed for warmth, plus I'm wearing leather gloves for protection from the hot glass and I have a set of stainless steel tongs to manipulate the glass. I'm wearing my glasses and I also have safety glasses. In class we were ok with wearing our regular glasses; just so our eyes are protected.

Now I'm grabbing hold of the glass string and pulling, twisting, and contorting it as much as I can. I actually have a pretty good run of curly qs in this shot.



Here's a close up of how I'm working with the glass string.



On the floor, directly underneath the kiln I have a fiber blanket in place to 'catch' the glass droppings. They're still pretty warm when they hit that blanket, but they do cool quickly.



I can't wait to start on the green ones. I'll probably do that Wednesday or Thursday of this week.

Hope you had fun seeing the pictures of the process. I'm looking forward to incorporating these into my new work for the shows coming up this spring.

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.

Progress Reports

I'm happy to report that I had a successful outcome of the firing of the batch of 8 Texas Star Christmas ornaments. I'm posting a picture of them and
the next picture of the same ornaments with the pre-cut stars for the completion of the Texas flag look. It's so fortunate for me that Wasser glass pre-cuts shapes that most of us would find beyond difficult to do. These little stars come from Wasser and I love using their glass. I plan on doing a tack fuse to hold these smaller stars in place on the ornaments.

Currently I'm firing the last batch of Texas Star ornaments and Christmas Tree ornaments. This batch of tree ornaments are a little wider on the bottom, at the customer's request. Unfortunately, the picture doesn't show the layer technique I'm using all that well, but the outcome from my first effort was really cool....even if I do say so myself. It was a technique that I learned in the Patty Gray class I took at D & L last month.

For the trees, I stacked 5 different types of glass and as the glass fuses they melt into each other creating a wonderful effect (I think).

The Texas Stars have been challenging. Tomorrow I plan on devoting the greater part of the day to working on the Peace Offering stained glass window. I'm very anxious to see the light come through this one, but then I guess I always am. This window seems special and I'll continue to post my work in progress on it.

Hey Karen....it really wasn't my intent to send snow your way! Boy, it isn't officially winter yet and we're experiencing the harshness of it!

My Bowl from the Patty Gray Class

Here are a couple of views of my completed bowl from the Patty Gray class. I'm anxious to make more and try different styles.






I thought it would be fun to post pictures of some of the other bowls from the class too. You can see mine in the two shots. Some are still in the stainless steel bowl molds. So many wonderful ideas that came to fruition here. Great to see all the creativity!

New Projects

Tonight I started a fuse that will complete a couple of projects from my Patty Gray class last week. The first is a triptych, another is a mosaic of sorts. I'm re-working a couple of pendants from my last firing. I'm firing both shelves at the same time. It's nice to have a kiln that will accommodate that type of work.

And I have a teaser....I completed the Peace Angel and tomorrow I'll have a picture to post of her with the sunlight coming through. She will be delivered to her home on Sunday afternoon to watch over little Robert Foote. Her companion, the Jubilation Angel, has been watching over his big sister, Rachael, since her birth a little over two years ago. My hope is that both of the angels will become family heirlooms.

Stay tuned......

Paragon Kilns RULE!!!!

I am soooooooooooooooooooo happy this morning. Spoke with my rep, Peter, with Paragon and he walked my husband and I through the rest of the installation process this morning. Once all was back in place, we plugged it in, turned it on, and started a firing schedule. My kiln started humming like a large kitten....just as it should. Heat came on to the elements and the familiar hum it makes as it fires was back.

I'm just ecstatic! I feel alive again (ok I know that sounds strange), but I felt I had been cut off from my creativity because my kiln wasn't working. AND I have TONS I want to do with my kilnwork after my class with Patty Gray and the painting DVDs.

Now I'm back and couldn't be happier. Yep, Paragon Kilns Rule!

Patty Gray's Class at D & L

Tonight I'm operating on information overload. Today was the last day of the three day Patty Gray class at D & L Stained Glass in Denver. Awesome doesn't even describe it adequately....and I can't come up with the right descriptor right now because I think I'm still processing information.

It was wonderful. I think my work has been bumped up more than a notch or two! I have TONS of pictures to post. I thought about taking my camera for the first day of class, but didn't. At least I have pictures from the last two days and I'm so thankful we could take photos.

The main purpose of the class was to learn Patty's technique for slumping thick bowls. Since glass likes to seek a level of 1/4" when it fuses, we build our pieces 3/8" to 1/2" and put fiber dams around them to keep them at that thickness.


I'm posting a picture of my bowl, after the initial fuse, but before the slump. First attempts at anything, for me, generally show me what I need to do the next time I try something. This is no different. I was going for three leaves. I needed to build them higher and add some black or sienna for definition on my next attempt. Pieces of clear glass were placed on top to form a mound and when fused the glass seeks a level. Mine isn't as thick as some of the others. For a first attempt, I like the colors. Once I get a picture of the finished bowl (which I brought home tonight), I'll post that next.


I can't thank Patty and the staff at D & L enough for this great learning experience. Here's a picture of me with 'da crew.... From left to right is me, the awesome Patty Gray, Mo (D & L), and Steve (D & L).

Signing off for the night, I'm one tired puppy as this picture confirms!

Kiln Status

We're gettin' there.... The manufacturer of my kiln is Paragon. I bought this brand because of their reputation for known quality, durability, and customer service. I also felt it was the right size kiln for me at the time of purchase, which was in March of 2007. I'm happy to report I was right on all counts. Although I must admit I've been checking out larger kilns for the day when I need a second kiln!

The technician walked me through some additional troubleshooting this afternoon. It looks like the main power cable to the board may have had a problem that started this malfunction for me. They will ship out a new circuit board, cable harness, and two relays so I will have a spare. Once I get them, I need to call them back so they can walk me through the process and make sure we've found and fixed the problem.

I'm thankful and hopeful that my kiln will be operational next week. Paragon's staff is the best...helpful, courteous, and they definitely want the customer to be happy. Now I only wish they would have given me a little better price break on the replacement items, but ya can't have everything, right?

Happy creating. Tomorrow I head to Denver for a three day class with Patty Gray. Can't wait.

Looking for a Bright Note

Well, my kiln needs a 'transplant'. While trying to trouble shoot the controller, it started smoking. Not a good sign when it comes to circuit boards. So, I removed it and will send it to the manufacturer for replacement. And I still don't know what the actual cause of the problem was. As my husband says, we'll see what happens when the new circuit board comes back and we install it. If it's still malfunctioning after that, we'll try to find an authorized repair service in the area. For now, my kilnwork has come to a halt and I am very disappointed.



Looking for the bright note in my day, I was able to solder the Peace Angel. I wasn't sure I could put a lead border around her, but after looking at her tonight, I think I can, so that will be my next step. I did get to see the light shine through the glass this afternoon and she's beautiful.

Things happen for a reason. I just don't know what that is right now in terms of the kiln malfunction. But I'll go forward with my stained glass pursuits and wire wrapping glass cabochons for now.

At the end of this week, I will be heading up to Denver for a three day glass with Patty Gray. D & L Stained Glass is having her come to teach her techniques for fused bowls. That's another bright spot for me.

Happy creating everyone.