creative gallery archive 2015

[Pat from Canvey]

I made some wriggly stringer in the vitrigraph kiln and wanted to use it in a plate. I fused the stringer to the white base then capped it with clear, forgetting to put some small props between the two layers. You can see that this resulted in a few small bubbles. The white seemed greyer to me after capping so wondered what you professional fusers would have done. Put either clear or white under the fused piece?

Forgot to say the plate is 25.5 cm in diameter.

[Lakelady]

Made this using a very tweaked version of a flow design.  Quite happy with it and quite shocked it turned out so well! 
2015-01-17 11.58.12 by TRGA, on Flickr

[Moira HFG]

I've been playing with some stone and amber beads whilst I wait for the temp in the studio to rise. I decided to make a length of Viking knit to finish a necklace. I'd only done a test bit before, but it's not hard to work:

Viking knit in brass wire by sleepychamaeleon, on Flickr


I don't know if the wire was a bit too thick (0.4mm brass) or if I was just working too tight, but I couldn't get the finished length off the pencil for love nor money! So I did the obvious next thing. I set fire to the pencil:

Viking knit -removal from the working base by sleepychamaeleon, on Flickr


I was pleasantly surprised by the colours that appeared. How much this is simple flame annealing, and how much is due to burning paint, cedarwood etc I don't know. I made coiled ends and torched them to match, and the necklace is now finished:

Viking knit finished and used in a necklace by sleepychamaeleon, on Flickr

Unfortunately I didn't seal the necklace before wearing it, and a lot of the colour has worn off. I think I need a box of cheap pencils to try again!

[Pat from Canvey]

I bought my daughter a one day glass blowing course at the Glass Hub for her birthday last November. I was on tenterhooks because I knew she'd either like it or hate it. Fortunately she enjoyed herself. She went last Saturday and these are her makes.

[Pat from Canvey]

One of my sons had beer to drink at Christmas so I kept the bottles, as you do, instead of putting them out for recycling. I've finally got around to turning them into frit and putting it in the vitrigraph kiln. I wanted to practice adding twists to the rods but didn't want to use up expensive glass in the process. This is the result,    I'll probably fuse some to use in a bottle glass bowl or platter. As a quick estimate, I've probably got about 40 ft of rod.

[Pat from Canvey]

I have lots more of the bottle frit so wanted to try fusing it together. This star was fused at 840 deg C in my SC2.
  I used the SC2 because I didn't want to fire uo my bigger kiln for one small piece. The mold was a cookie cutter lined with fibre paper.

[Pat from Canvey]

I've been messing around with these and simple beads,  My crochet is improving a bit but I can still see the mistakes here.

[richardnash666]

My wife made these to hold my prepared mandrels

DSC_0079 by Richard Nash, on Flickr

DSC_0078 by Richard Nash, on Flickr

DSC_0077 by Richard Nash, on Flickr

[Pat from Canvey]

The name says it all really. I'd made loads of cane from green beer bottles, a clear wine bottle and a couple of pickle jars. The dish is that cane fused onto a piece of float glass. The dish has slightly curved edges at the short ends. There are some tiny incompatibility cracks going across individual canes but the whole is firmly attached to the base. The point of the exercise was to learn lots and that has happened. The surface was brushed with my homemade devitrification spray as I said in another post. Perhaps I'll leave out the pickle jars next time      I didn't consume the beer. That was one of my sons last Christmas.

[Irene]

I've been on a pottery class. It was so much fun! Wish I could do this more.

[Pat from Canvey]

Years ago, I made two simple kaleidoscopes using both a Pringles and a Cheeselets tub plus som oddments of mirror glass and stained glass chips. The instructions were in a book, Simple Kaleidoscopes by Gary Newlin. It was withdrawn from the Public Library and I bought it for about £1. I've just rediscovered them tucked into a corner and it occurrs to me that some of you with older children might embark on similar projects during the summer holidays. The photos are not good and there's loads of dust around but short of dismantling and cleaning, the photos are the best I can get.

[Pat from Canvey]

At the begining of the week, I did a 4 day kilncasting class with Nathan Sandberg at Creative Glass, Rochester. Here's box I nearly completed apart from fire polishing which I intend to do when I've completed box 2. We did 2 boxes using different methods and I've got box 2's lid in my kiln at the moment. I didn't pay much attention to choice of colours, because I wanted to concentrate on technique. At my age, the brain is a little slower and the 3 hour return journey each day didn't help. Despite doing 60-70 mph on the motorway stretches the 37mile journey took 1hr 40 mintes with stop start rush hour traffic at each end. Anyway, here's box 1. I miss calculated the amount of glass required so had some overspill which caused a piece of a corner to break off. Rather than bevel the other three corners to match, I took the easy route and glued the piece back on with E6000.

[Pat from Canvey]

Heres the lid newly out of the kiln. It's sitting on box 2 made at the class by a different method. I intend to flat lap the edges to conform to the shape I've ground the corners of the box. Surprise, surprise, it actually fits with about 1mm of wiggle room. The photo of the box is distorted by the angle the camera made to the box while photographing.

[gemkist]

So often I buy craft supplies and never get around to actually using them, so this morning I forced myself to use some glass paints that had arrived following an evening on Pinterest looking at painted glass and reading how easy it is to do. My 60th birthday is coming up, so I thought I would start to collect 60 jars for lights or flowers for the tables. I am having a few friends over!

It is a bit messy to do. Things I learnt: Don't paint the outside as some folk suggest. It is impossible to put the jar down without fingermarks. Paint the inside. Jars with "shoulders" are difficult to do. The best jar of all was a Bonne Mama jam jar. The paint is easier to apply if it is thinned down quite a lot, but this will make the colour lighter. I used a long Squirrel paint brush and worried as it all looked streaky and there were bubbles as I laid them to dry, but miracle of miracles, most of these disappear as they dry. You can mix colours, so I may make a purple once I gather more jars! I hope to be able to give everyone a jar when they leave the party. They are left to dry for 24hrs then will be baked in an oven to permanently set the paint. I love them!

glass_jars400 by Hilary Milne, on Flickr

[Hotglass28]

Hello, thought you'd like to see my new fledgling business.  All natural handmade soap.  Much excitement for me at the moment. lol

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tuatara-Soap-Co/866486436782686

I'm still a glassworker, always will be. but this is what I'm doing now    I've got 9 different certified bars, but at the moment as cash flow is low I only have 3. I need a lottery win for all the oils I need. 

Much love

Denise