Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Fused Glass Snowflakes at the LUX


The fused glass holiday season has begun 

   My first group of students for the season was ready to jump right in! I got lots of great photos of them all working...Since all of the students are newbies and it's a short family class, the easiest way to get started is to use mosaic nippers and cut strips down to glue together in a snowflake pattern.
Getting started...
My favorite part of these classes is seeing the color combos that everyone chooses...

Puzzling the pieces together...
Of course, I absolutely love hearing the words, "This is really addictive!" The first words murmured out of the mouths of future glass addicts like myself...
Teamwork! Nipping glass!
And now for the best shots of the evening...I'm not quite sure how I managed to get some funny faces from almost every group of participants! If only I knew what was going through their heads...

That's a mischievous look, if ever I saw one!


After the students were finished, I loaded the snowflakes into the car to take back to my kiln. I'm able to fit about 15 snowflakes in at once. That's half of the snowflakes we made in this class. Luckily, fused glass pieces that are small like these snowflakes take a short amount of time to fire. I'll be able to load up the second batch by the time I wake up in the morning. (When firing my plates and other large items, I have to wait up to 24 hours before opening the kiln!)

Fresh coat of kiln wash and the snowflakes are ready to melt...

600º Fahrenheit - nothing happening here except the glue's burning off...
1000º Fahrenheit - glass isn't melting yet, but the kiln is glowing...

Batch of snowflakes before being fired to 1440º F

Same batch of snowflakes after being fired to 1440º F

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