Draping/Slumping in the kiln!

Finally the first batch of discs is in the kiln slumping!  Here's a little walk though my last few days on the project. I'll have a lot to show you tomorrow!

Here are the slumping molds. They've been sprayed with Boron Nitride and elevated on 12" kiln posts. I did that so we didn't have any folding or touching of the kiln shelf.

These are the final discs that I did. Several shades of ambers.

Here the discs have been cold worked, washed well, and placed on their molds.

Here is the Hendrick's sink in the mold. It will be finished tomorrow! Yeah!
Then I'll drill the hole and do the countersink on Thursday.
The glass needs to rest and stabilize before I drill the hole.

This is the demo tack fuse piece that I did with my beginner fusers class.
It's mounted in a frame and surrounded by frit. The piece is 6" square and the frame is 8".
It really pops!

At the half way point!

I took a well deserved break from my 150 pound glass project. I've cast 54 of the 10" discs, prepped the molds, and am finally ready to cold work the first batch of 9 that will go first.

I've decided to slump a mix of colors together in case a batch somehow gets ruined, then I won't loose an entire color family and have to do an additional 25 pounds of glass.

The Hendricks' sink is cold worked and looks fantastic. The mold is prepped and ready!

Monday morning will be quite busy, but I'm looking forward to it.

I'm off to play in a charity mahjong tournament. This ought to be comical since I haven't played in a few months. Wish me luck!

Another 25 pounds In the kiln.

And here's the purple set that I just put in the kiln. I decided to do one more set in amber, just in case some of the slumps don't fall perfectly.

I'm concerned that the plums won't look as good and might be too dark. We'll see.... I used 1105-plum, 1234-violet striker, 1834-erbium pink, 1101-clear irid, and 1101 clear. Hopefully the plums and violet will blend nicely.

The amber has the following colors; 1837-light amber tint, 1137 amber, 1437-amber, 1101 clear irid, and clear.

Red glass discs!

I've hit the 100 pound mark on the project! Here are the red discs. I'm now having a dilemma over the plum ones. The purple glass all seems to dark. I will likely have to make a test piece before I proceed. Plus, the plum tones could be pricey if I have to used strikers, which I think will be necessary. Any one have an ideas?

More vases for City Year!

Yesterday I was in the studio smashing up the next batch of 25 pounds of glass for the City Year Vase project. We pulled out the cobalt blue discs and in comparison to the turquoise ones they really do stand out. I was concerned that they would just be too inky blue and not stand out from the others. No worries here! They turned out great! 

Judy and Rene helped me vacuum out the kiln and smash the glass. While we did that we had a "mothers of wayward children" chat, commiserating over how tough it is to be a mom, do the right stuff for your kids, and watch as they make mistakes you want to protect them from. I am so lucky to be surrounded by wonderful, strong, like minded women, with whom I can feel completely myself. 

Comparing the turquoise discs to the cobalt ones!

25 pounds of cobalts!

Beautiful greens!

In keeping with the other posts about this project, here's a list of the colors included in the green discs; 1417-emerald green, 1101.31 clear irid, 1847-spruce green, 1126-spring green, 1426-chartreuse irid, 1107-light green, 1207-pine green. (I hope I didn't forget a number.)

I started to smash up the 25 pounds of red glass yesterday. We used; 1122.31-red irid, 1322-garnet, 1101.31-clear irid, #? fuschia, and 1025-red-orange. Red is always a challenge in casting because it wants to opacify at higher temps. So the key on the red discs will be to stay as low on the temp as possible, but still not hold it too long. HMMMM? Looks like I'll be adjusting the firing schedule.

Also....I'm finishing up a vessel sink job!  Pretty great, huh? Today I'll be cold working this puppy!

Hendricks Residence Vessel Sink

Weaving glass and all that jazz!

Friday I was privileged to have a private class with my old pal Gigi! We spent the day weaving, chatting, and having a generally busy, but good day. Here's some of what Gigi did!

Gigi weaving an awesome design!

another view of Gigi's Weave!

Here's Cathy's weave! She was motivated to do one  when she saw Gigi's!

Here is what I did while Gigi was weaving... Another 25 pounds of glass was smashed all in the name of the City Year glass Vase project! Then each piece was hand clipped with the nippers to get them smaller. Don't you love what a hammer can do to 6 half sheets of glass?

This is 25 pounds of Cobalt Blue tones

Here's how the turquoise ones came out... In case you wanted to know, these were made with turquoise irid, light turquoise, aqua tint irid, clear, and a smudge of light aqua, and a pinch of light sky blue.

These are the cast discs out if the kiln, and the final shape prototype.

Today is Saturday and I taught our Essentials of Glass Fusing Class. Here's my awesome class and my demo pieces. We had a great time! I love it when new students catch glass fever!

This is a dichroic pendant fully fused and a 6" square tack fuse piece
both going in at 1325 F for a little soak!

While my class was working in the cold room I weighed out the next batch of vase discs and put them into the kiln.  Here they are... each disc is 2.5 pounds-give or take a 1/10... if you really want to know.

Hopefully these look like a very different blue then the turquoise ones above.

I'm a tad concerned that they could be too dark. I added lots of clear and lighter tones into the mix, so hopefully they'll be deep blue, but still very translucent and bright. I used true blue irid, steel blue, light sky blue, clear, flecks of turquoise irid and opaque deep cobalt blue, and left over blue gray.  Cross your fingers for me!

The next batch is green, then reds, then plum tones.  So I'm 50 pounds in on the project so far.  I'm going to cast all the disks first, then cold work them all, and then drape them all last. If anyone has any thoughts, let me know. I've never had to do 45 of something before, so any knowledgable input is welcome!

Tomorrow I have a private fine silver/argentium fusing class with a student from Corpus Christi. I'm sure we'll have a blast.

25 pounds of glass!

That's a lot of glass to break. I'm doing this commission of 45 centerpieces for City Year San Antonio's Gala. I'm excited to do the work, but there sure is a lot of glass to break!

Each vase weighs 2.7 pounds so 9 in one kiln load takes about 25 pounds of shard. So I went through the process of choosing the shades, weighing it all out, making rings/dams, then weighing each of the 9 discs, and then pouring the shard into the rings and then finally firing them.

This is the turquoise batch. Then I have a red, cobalt, green, and plum batch to do. I'll show pictures as we proceed. All in all 125 pounds of bullseye glass.

It should take 5 full fuses and 5 drape kiln runs. In a perfect world. Hahaha
Like that's gonna ever happen. I'll keep you filled in!

I love to weld! Or... Hot Joints!

We have had the best 2 days! Maryjo Emrick, a welding and art metals instructor, taught an Intro to Welding class at Wired Designs Studios. We learned to oxy-acetylene weld, MIG weld, TIG weld, and Stick weld. Totally cool!

We're totally gonna do this again! Cant wait to be alone and make some awesome stuff!

Volume and Movement Class - Part 2

After the initial firing, here's what we ended up with...

This was the stack platter! The final piece is 8.5" x 16"

 Meredith decided to make this stack platter into a wall piece. She sandblasted and then matte polished all of the blue squares. It looks really cool!

This is a very large pocket vase, also known as a jardinière .

Here's a view at the back with the hanger set up and some of the batting.

Here's another view.

I'll show you the final end product when they are finished!

STRINGER!

Omg! We got in A LOT of it!

The new class on volume control and movement

Today I had a volume control and movement class. We did several lay ups of movement and volume control exercises to allow gravity and flow to effect the glass. Here are a couple of shots.

The first shot is on the shelf that is elevated on one side. I'll show you the finished slab tomorrow. The second is a high fire movement piece. We also did a great stack piece. More pix to come.

The Bowl is in the Sanctuary!

Font. n. 1. (Christianity / Ecclesiastical Terms). a. a large bowl for baptismal water, usually mounted on a pedestal. b. a receptacle for holy water. 

As promised, here are the pictures of the Baptismal Bowl/Font sitting on the stand.

It was wonderful to deliver it and see the happy faces of the Pastor and the church staff. They will be unveiling it on Sunday morning. I'm so glad they are pleased! I'm really liking doing these jobs 'cause they make me feel like I am going to be a part of every happy celebration at the church. I know that's silly, but I'm a sap!

I'm teaching beginning Soldering tomorrow to 7 students.  I'll share what we make!

Tah Dah! Here's the Finished Bowl!

The beautiful Baptismal Bowl for Zion Lutheran Church Font is finally done. The deadline is January 11th, so I'm totally excited that I'll be able to deliver the job early. That doesn't happen often! This bowl is 16" in diameter and about 4.5" deep.

This is the front view. I wish there wasn't so much glare!

This view is just a little further up.

This view is on top, looking into the bowl.

The rim actually came out very nicely. It's always a bit of a gamble, even when you do everything right. I'll take a photo tomorrow of the bowl in the font stand in the sanctuary so you can really see it in it's home!

Also, I cut a boat load of dichroic glass today... Here's a little bite to wet your appetite!

This is rainbow, granite, ripple on back- COE 90...YUMMY!