Monday, April 30, 2012

Last Week into This Week...

It's hard to believe that it's May 1st tomorrow. How is the time flying so fast! As usual, I'm a busy bee with all kinds of buzzing going around.

Here's the recap:

Grad School: I turned in my final 3000 word paper today! Yeah! Now I have just one more week of reading and blogging ahead and I'll be done for the semester. I'm glad I only took this one class to get my feet wet, 'cause it was a commitment with everything else going on. I don't know if school will get harder or easier, but I'm glad I'm doing it. This was a great class! Thanks to Ed Check, my TTU prof! The class was Research Methods in Art. I'll publish my paper if I get a decent grade, so you all can read it. It's revealing!

WD: This week I had a few classes; Drop Ring Vessels and PMC Silver Beads. Here are some pix!

These are 2 drop ring molds with their happy blanks sitting on top. It's important to make sure they are level before you fire them, so here's the bubble level on top....hope I removed that before firing! Both molds needed slight shimming to make them level. I'll post after pix when done!
Here's a PMC Silver lentil bead, it's approx. 1.5" It's hollow!

This is a glazed bisque bead with a PMC ribbon wrapped around it. This was fun to do. This bead is 1.75" It's almost too big. But i'll find something to do with it to make it cool and wearable.

This is a bisque bead that was painted with PMC and then PMC clay was applied. It's about  3/4". The other side has a cool leaf imprint.

This one is my favorite! This is a hollow PMC bead made by painting PMC slip onto a cotton armature, then layering clay and syringe over that. It's approximately 2" tall, and even though it's hollow, it's heavy. When fired, the cotton armature burns out and leaves the inside hollow. We're carrying the cotton armatures and the bisque beads at the shop if anyone wants to try this. SO COOL!

Also....Denise Leone will be arriving at Wired Designs studios on Wednesday to teach her class. I'm so looking forward to it. We still have one open spot if someone wants to jump in last minute. I'm excited because we're using Rapid Mask! it doesn't need a wash out! YEAH!!!!

Commissions: The vases for the the church in college station turned out great. They are still cooling in the kiln so I'll post pix of that tomorrow with the drop rings. The Alvarez gray metallic sink is slumped, but...alas....not all goes as planned and the rim is crooked, so I'll have to spend an hour or so grinding the darn lip. I know it make the vessel sink look even more stunning, but I'm kind of lazy, so I was hoping I wouldn't have to do it.

Luann's sink turned out gorgeous, but the casting was just a little too thin, so it had to go back into the kiln with more glass. Here's how that looked.


I added 2 more half sheets of color and some clear medium grit to bulk it up. Hopefully it won't change the color much, because the blank was gorgeous and the client approved us to go to the next step.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

What's Happening this Week?

It's been quite the busy week! 

I've had private classes with my pal Elizabeth and I'm afraid she's gotten more than she bargained for. We worked on color chemistry and reactions and some of the projects didn't work out as she'd planned, but she now has segued into strip construction and pattern bar creation because we've cut up a few of the disasters and are using the pieces in different ways!  I can't wait for her to see the finished product, because they are goon blow her away. I'll show you guys when they are complete!  

Also, bravo to Will! He's going to high school at Winston School! He had to do 2 days onsite as a student and be evaluated by the staff, and at the end, they invited him to attend! We're very excited for him! But it means a 55 minute drive every morning and evening....eeek! Car pool anyone??

Oops, this is from a few weeks ago. It's a demo from my beginning glass class fusing class. Here's what I did with it!

I'm also working on 2 vessel sinks! This one is for my friend Luanne's new powder room. It's gorgeous! I'll be cold working this one this afternoon.


The second one is from a customer in California. It's 4101.31 and 1429, for those of you who know what that is! I'll post a picture of that tomorrow!

Grad School is going well! Just one month left of this semester, which means; one more book (gotta read 90 pages today), 16 more blog postings (about 4 per week), 1000 more words to add onto the final paper. So far I'm doing ok! 

The weather is heavenly here right now! I slept with the windows open last night, which is not the norm here in cedar pollen land, but it was wonderful! Thanks g-d!

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Long time no blog!

Yesterday Rene taught a great soldering class. Here's Luanna's first soldered pieces. I'm so proud!

Here's what I've been up to:
I've been teaching a lot since I got back from Vegas but its all good.

Heres some of my class demos

Plus, I've been electro forming like crazy. All of the Vegas samples need to be done and sent out. I feel like a real science geek! But I love it!

Mostly I'm missing my Vegas buddies whom I can't talk to right now cause I'm so crazy busy.

I love that I've been able to be so productive!

Thanks to Nicole and Lisa who were such awesome Vegas buddies! Xo