Bit late updating this week.

I returned to Uni to collect my last bits that had been cooked. Monday night was a busy one, Beth was in a production at the Barn theatre youth drama festival (photos to follow) So I popped out after her play had finished and collected my creations!!

The circle above was last week when I put it in the kiln, bright blues, yellows and purple. I did sprinkle a bit of copper bubble powder which comes out green, plus some splashes of water. Well this is the result. Not much yellow in evidence!!

It is however quite interesting and I like the dull result for the patterns in it.

Look at all greeny blue colours and tiny bubbles, lovely!!!

I had mixed results with the coasters, the fingerprints faded to nothing which was disappointing. The black outlines stayed strong. The lines and dots were OK, but dull, and the heart was OK, I wish I had used the white more as that with a bit of frit came out quite bright

Beth's two coasters, the animals and the the words came out well  as did the mum and dad ones. Its dads birthday the weekend so I will give him one as part of the present.

So to sum up the course was OK, and I think I might go back later in the year to see if I can do something else with glass. I asked about the course feedback form, the tutor gave me one but it was filled in with someone elses name, that just about sums up the adhoc disorganised nature of the course!!!

Last Night and Kiln Gate!!!!

Tonight was our last night at Uni, I had hoped to sign up again but unless you renew within a millisecond you are too late, so I think I will wait until the autumn now. We have some stuff to use in our own kilns but I will miss my Monday nights with all the odd strange people who were in attendance!!

You know how it is when you start a new course, you start as the new girl and have to get to know people. On the first week we were shown to our seats by the instructor, but what we hadn't realised was that the seats she had decided we could use were used by other people, so straight away we were treading on someone elses toes!! We managed to claim those seats for three weeks and then we went in and found that someone else had got them and we were relegated to the seats near the wash up. It was sitting in this position that the true characters in our class revealed themselves. Just about everyone had to wash something at some point in the evening so we were in their line of fire for everything. 

Just about everyone was working on their own projects, and they were all very different. There was Mr little bits, he sat in the same place every week, was reluctant to talk to anyone and all he did was tack fuse hundreds of tiny pieces of glass together. Tonight we found out he was turning all the elements into a huge hanging chandelier  construction which was lit by LED lights. Despite us trying he barely exchanged two words with us the whole course. Then there was Mrs Union Jack - who nicked our seats. The first week we arrived she was making a very intricate union jack out of glass, she worked on that for weeks. Then she spoke to another lady one night and accused her of breaking one of her moulds, that caused a few fireworks!!

There was Mr shiny frit, who made intricate symmetrical designs on the glass and was very proficient, he accused me of disturbing the frit on one of his pieces in the kiln (I hadn't). There was Mrs Cracked pieces who every week tried to make a second lampshade to match the first that she had already successfully created, it was not something that was going to happen, every week she came in to a variety of failures, she did manage one night to get one out of the kiln complete only to drop it while sand blasting it!!! Lastly there was a  lady who thought it was fine to walk around passing comments of the standard of everyone elses work!! including calling Debbie's very messy work and mine 'organic' (for organic read crap!!!) There were some nice people there including the lady we started with and a very nice primary teacher and her friend, but its the odd ones that make life interesting. 

Here is the outcome of last weeks experiments, I am pleased with the chickens and hearts but the coins were a step too far, they were too thick and caused the glass to crack, lesson learned!!

Last week I only put those few things in but this week it was kiln gate, seems that we all had the same idea last week, do as much as possible resulting in loads of stuff to go in the kiln. Deb and I did more than that we made some coasters at home, so I had a dozen coasters plus another 'organic' circular piece. There was a bit of a rush on to get stuff in the kiln, the teacher had to intervene after there was a lot of thinly disguised tutting about 'certain people' taking up more than their fair share of the space. I didn't feel bad, there was a woman doing panes of glass for her front door and they were huge!!!

So tonight along with all my coasters I made a circle and slung on it paint, some bubble powder and water, lets see how that comes out!!!!

Decorated thumb prints by Beth and me!!!

I made the one on the right and Beth the one on the left.

My messy circle waiting to be cooked, I am hoping that there will be little bubbles in there as well for an interesting effect. We can go back next week to recover them from the kiln!!!!

I will miss my Monday nights in the mad house. 

This Weeks Glass.....

I love going back to see how my 'creations' have turned out!! This week my end of rods have all melted together very nicely. This time I laid down a base and then added the scraps on top, they have all melted into each other very nicely. No cracks or breaks this time, I have no idea what to do with it, but its pretty!

I put my flat disk back and slumped it into a bowl shape, not a hundred percent successful, but not too bad so I am pleased with it. Another 10 weeks should see me making a really professional bowl!! Sadly I only have one week left. 

I am particularly pleased with these little pieces, they have turned out very nicely. I hope to be able to stick bails to them and turn them in to necklaces or failing that fridge magnets!!

I had made plans this week to sandblast the backs of the coasters and circles I had made in the previous weeks, so I lugged them all back there and got dressed up in all the required garb.....

Mask and huge black rubber gloves, I went to the sand blasting cabinet placed the items inside shoved my gloved arms through the small holes in the cabinet, poked my foot underneath and pushed the pedal.... nothing. Tried again still nothing. It turns out they compressor had been switched off and we didn't have access to the basement to switch it back on again. So all that dressing up and carrying of glass for nothing. I'll try again next week.

In the end I sat down and made some more coasters, its a good way of trying out designs and seeing what works. Laura bought me some glassine paints so I wanted to try them out as well. 

So tonight's experiments, from top left, a funky chicken, a blue and copper heart which I plan on giving to Carl, the a yellow and copper heart I plan on giving to Beth. Bottom row 9 Danish coins, as I expect I will not be returning there any time soon. Another chicken and finally a two tone copper heart for Laura.

Lets see how they all turn out next week. 

Monday Night Uni Night!!

Tonight I went back to see how last weeks work had turned out, I was very pleased with it !! (if I say so myself!!) The circles have turned out well and so have the coasters.

Its clear that having a professional cut the glass for the coasters makes all the difference, they lined up well and look good in real life.  I think I am going to take them back next week and sandblast the backs, that gives a frosty look and the pattern is more prominent with a white background. 

This week I concentrated on some smaller items using up some of the small pieces of Bulls eye glass and dichroic glass that I had. I hope that they will come out nicely rounded and ready to turn into a pendant. I suspect that is unlikely in reality!!!

Here are the before...

I hope these turn out looking like flowers!!

I am curious to see how the dichroic glass looks after its been cooked!!

These two are made with float glass so its to see how they turn out.

This is less than one inch square so again it might turn out interesting, or not!!!!

Updating my glassy things.

This week has been a busy one, in fact every week is busy rushing from one thing to another. This week has been harder because of the weather and the problems that causes. Monday night we still had a load of snow and the roads were bad, so I ended up on the course on my own again. I don't blame Deb for not wanting to travel, the conditions were awful.

The week before I used a ceramic bowl to slump one of my rounds of glass into. I wanted to make a bowl, well above is my first ever bowl!! Its wonky and a bit crinkly around the edges, but its a start!! I am actually quite proud of it for a first attempt.

The round above is the result of the Mica and pottery glaze experiment. I really liked the painting bit! What doesn't really show up is the shimmery effect of the mica. I hope next week to slump that into another bowl and see how that turns out!!

The square is similar to the circle in design and again quite sparkly. The circles this time are brown in colour. I have learnt that the ceramic glazes hold their colour when fired, but the glass paints I used on the blue and green bowl go translucent, both effects have a place.

Debbie bought me a book on fusing glass and I fell in love with a design that was on the front. It was quite intricate with lots of small pieces of cut glass used to make the design. The glass that we use is called float glass and to buy coloured compatible glass is very expensive, so I recreated the design with paint!!!  Using the same technique as before I painted on one side allowed it to dry and then flipped it over and put it on top of the second round of glass which was sprinkled with orange frit. I love the colours!! I also made 6 coasters to go with the two place mats. I can't wait until they come out of the  kiln!!!

Tonight we are having another snow storm, its about three inches deep in the deepest places and that over the last lot that hasn't gone!! Its nearly my birthday and its been a long time since I had snow on that day of celebration 

Monday at Uni.

Last week I tried painting a design on a sheet of glass, and then sandwiching it between two pieces of glass. It was then fused. When it started out it was blue, green,brown and yellow, as you can see the brown turned into green and the yellow washed out. But I am still pleased with the result. I don't think that Wedgwood or Royal Doulton have anything to worry about!!!

I have decided to slump the flat circle of glass into a bowl. I have no idea how this will turn out. The instructor (I use that term very loosely, she hasn't done a lot of instructing so far!!!) 'thinks' the bowl may be a little too deep, so we'll have to see how that goes, fingers crossed.

My other experiment was to use all the ends of glass rods I had left over from bead making. It was a bit of a mixed result really. All the glassed used was of the same COE but for some reason it broke into two pieces. I think it might be to do with the firing process rather than the mismatching of glass. Anyway I managed to rescue the biggest part of it by trimming it and sanding the edges.  Today when photographing it I have noticed that there are some very small cracks so I don't think its long for this world!!!

Spurred on by the painting last week I actually went in with a plan of action. I found a pattern that I quite liked  and I copied a version of it in black ceramic paint. I think its quite striking, I ladled the paint on thickly in the hope that the colour will stick and stay strong and opaque. I then sprinkled pink Mica on the second circle of glass, flipped the first over and made a sandwich with it. In my head that will come out black with a sparkly pink background, lets see what happens in reality!!!

I started to run short of time so my second piece was still wet in this photo, I did the same as the circle one except this time I used sepia paint and red/green mica . The instructor came over and by way of encouragement said - 'such a lot of detailed work when we don't know if it'll work'!!! Thanks for the vote of confidence Mrs Instruction lady!!!  Onwards and Upwards!!!

Monday Night - Glass experimentation night!!!!

Mondays seem to come around very quickly, already we have done three weeks on our course. Tonight the instructor arrived late as she had unfortunately had an accident in her car. She was distraught (as you might expect) but she wouldn't go home and leave us to it. Poor thing, cars a write off but she and her other half are OK thank goodness. 

So we eagerly looked on the shelves to see what had happened to last weeks efforts. I was quite pleased with mine its has turned out quite nice!!!

This is the big square that I made last week, its turned itself into a platter although the edges need finishing to make them smoother. We have yet to be let loose on the sanding/smoothing machine!! Its quite interesting close up and surprisingly heavy. The bowl I want to perfect is getting closer and closer!!

I really like the sparkly green nuggets and the pink back ground. 

I also made a little dish which also needs finishing but that was an interesting experiment I used off cuts of glass plus some mica powder for a bit of sparkle. 

Tonight as I said, got off to a bad start so we ended up not getting as much done as we had hoped. I was determined to arrived prepared with a plan in my head. I went one step further and printed out a pattern to copy. I had also managed to get some circles cut out at another glazier who turned out to be cheaper than the first one and was extremely easy on the eye as well. I was most impressed with his circle cutting techniques!!!

So tonight I painted a design on a circle of glass and hope to turn that int a bowl at some point once it has fused together. 

I painted with enamel and then scratched a design on the paint. I have no idea how that will turn out, not sure if it will fade or get brighter, we'll have to wait and see.

I also took in a box of ends of rods left over from my bead making. They are not compatible with float glass so I decided to pile them up and see what happens. I have tried to make a panel shape, but it it turns out a bit wonky we will head for the machines and smooth all the edges!!!

It'll be good to see what happens. The only thing that offends me is that glaring yellow rod half way op, how did I miss that??? I hope it melts down and hides itself!!!

Playing with my 'New Toy'

The girls at work bought me a mini kiln for my birthday and until yesterday I have not had the time to try it out. Its a tiny little one with a 3 inch chamber, so I thought I would try fusing glass, which looked easy!!!
So I got a few bits and pieces off of Ebay and gave it a go.
I set up my first experiment a small piece of black glass, some multi coloured frit and then a piece of clear glass. I then cooked it. It looked pretty colour wise before it went in, but when it came out it had 'slipped' so I have learnt something, frit must melt at a different rate to the pieces of glass. The result of the slipped piece is bottom left below.

Not deterred I tried some more colour combinations. Top left is a piece of glass with a flower shape on top made with pieces of Milliefiori glass. That melted together nicely. Top right was an oblong piece of clear with three milliefiori pieces. (Beth's design) and the last one was a piece of black glass with green frit topped off with a clear piece.
There are so many possibilities, I am going to play some more!!