Screen printing on high fires!

I'm so proud of my great students. They worked really hard to get their images perfect! Way to go!!!!

What an awesome class!  My students were the best!  Here's a look at some of their great work!

Printmaking on Glass

Wednesday's class was fantastic! We made silk screens, created our own photo resists, created photo transfers, worked with Gel Medium for ink transfer, and finally focused on direct painting with Enamels! The workshop, which was a consolidated version of our regular class gave everyone a taste of print making techniques and provided all the students with a sample of each type to take home. There sure was a lot to cover in a short period of time, but we did it and still managed to laugh!

A big thanks to Gary M. for his awesome seafood gumbo and homemade cornbread for lunch!  It was truly a southern treat!

Here are some pictures to give ya'll a feel for the whirlwind that was our day!

This is a combination of silk screened and photo resist samples.
There's even a photo transfer with some overlaid enamel!

More overlaid enamels!

Here's the gel medium transfers, and the photo transfers.

My sample of a silk screen thumb print under a photo resist figure.

This is a thick block that has photo resist works inside and an enamel painting on top.
This is in the kiln now! (I'll post a finished picture when it's complete.)

Here's my painted enamels overtop of a gel medium transfer background.

Here's part of the group dry filling their blasted resists!

Join us for the next one of these workshops in October!  Here's a few sample photo's.....

Vessel Sinks and Metal Etching 'r Us!

Here are the 2 sinks I'm working on! Today, I drilled the hole and countersink on the silver grey one. It's packed up and ready to go to Jorge in California. It was time consuming to polish that edge, but totally worth it in the end. They'll love it!

This sink is light silver grey and silver grey fracture irid special production glass.

The golds, the blues, the silvers, and the plums...make this an awesome design.

The customer is putting this on a black countertop, but on white you can see how transparent it is!

This is the second sink. It is for my dear friend Luanne's guest bath remodel. The sink is finished, but because we adore her, we're going to do the special flattened, polished edge. It will likely take me a few hours, but I want it to be very special for her.

So tomorrow, you'll catch me hanging out at the flat lap for a while. I'm still kind of sore from the grey sink polishing, but I'll think of this as my abdominal and bicep workout! Sometimes I dance and polish at the same time just to make the time go faster. Since I'm wearing my earphones, I sing at the top of my lungs. I bet I look hysterical to anyone who stumbles in!

This sink is cast. It's a combination of Grass Green, Turquoise, Light Aqua, Clear w/Silver irid, and light sky blue. I hand pulled black sheet glass into stringer for contrasting lines. I know my clients will love it.

Also, on Sunday we had a metal etching class. Here's the project we did...

This is Nicole's bracelet. We etched copper and brass sheet and then cut, punched and connected jump rings and hand made a clasp. I bet she's wearing it right now!

Denise Leone's class!

Here are some of the blocks we constructed in class. There were so many awesome techniques we learned. Thanks to Denise for teaching us so much! My compressor is happy to have the day off! Yesterday was hot and the compressors engine was giving off a lot of heat. The air just couldn't keep up.

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

Finished Another Baptismal Font!

Hello World! It's been 17 days since I blogged about anything. Can you believe that I've been feeling guilty?

Here are the pictures of the Baptismal Font for Our Savior's Lutheran Church in College Station, Texas. Their colors in the sanctuary are deep blues with touches of ambers and aquas. They wanted their font to evoke the feeling of water and tie in the colors of the sanctuary. They will be building a new stand for the font.  I can't wait to see it in the space. Pardon the reflections!

Our Savior's Lutheran Church Baptismal Font

View from the top - Our Savior's Lutheran Church

This is what the cast disc looked like...to see the
filled casting, you can check out the previous blog entry.

The last 2 weeks have been a roller coaster ride. I'm finally catching up with my school reading. I was 2 weeks behind on my reading and assignments, but I'm almost there. Spring Break for my son brought it's own time challenges, but that's almost done too. ...and our computer at the studio crapped out once again sending all the administrative stuff and into a tizzy....and me with it. Cathy who had to work with customers in the midst of this stayed calm! Stacey rode in on the white horse, and tried to save the day, (multiple times) mostly she was successful in keeping me calm and not allowing me to melt into a puddle on the floor. Thanks to Ed and Stacey for finally fixing it!

Enough whining!!! All is well in Gail-land and WD-land now! Thank you patron saint of over committed people everywhere!

So...  Mark Ditzler, an artist from Seattle came to teach about 12 days ago. He was wonderful! A very cool guy! He taught a lot of different glass techniques. His techniques were not new to me, but how he executed them was totally new to me. It's funny to discover that just because you know how to do something, doesn't mean you know the best ways, or even other ways to achieve the same thing. I always learn something from every instructor who comes here.

How Mark combines many of the techniques together into cohesive projects was the best lesson of his four day workshop. He demonstrated a few projects that he is well known for, but they are so elementary for him that I had to laugh! This guy has done some very complicated and exciting architectural glass work that isn't even on his website. Here are some of the simple demos he did.

Mark's dragonfly with silk screened wings.
He uses these in sinks, etc. So simple, but totally effective and powerful!

Mark's fish - Pretty realistic, and not cartoon-like!

Mark's Pattern Bars - Bilateral Symmetrical Fruit!
The students made butterfly wings, lemons, kiwis, etc.

Mark's silk screened sea shells!

I'd love to have Mark come back and do an advanced class on architectural design. The stuff he's cast is amazing. But we'd need 2 months just to anneal the suckers!!

Then Rene and I co-taught a combined Soldering 1 & 2 class. She taught part 1 and I did part 2. We had fun! But then we stayed until 7:30 at the studio doing our thing! Kaye, one of our students, had a ball! She's so much fun to hang around with! The other three students had a great time too! Although I think we overloaded them a bit.

He's my mixed metals pendant with bezel cup setting and custom bezel set dichro cabochon.

This week I taught on Thursday night, and Friday and then Lisa Meyer (she's awesome) came by to help me do more printing samples and non-dichro jewelry samples for my classes in Vegas. I'll post when finished so you can see the results!

Heidi was in the studio a lot this week! Love having her around! She'd doing great stuff! She's spinning as many plates as I am! I'm impressed! Go girl!

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

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!