More Snowflakes at the LUX

For the second session of fused glass snowflakes this year at the LUX Center for the Arts, we weren't at the LUX! Winterfest 2011 was in full throttle at the LUX, so we were fortunate enough to be able to use a conference room at Ayers and Ayers, Inc. The facilities were incredible, as it's a LEED certified building structure and just has some pretty amazing technology!

I was not the only one who loved the digital "dry erase" board :)

After we finished sketching out our ideas on the board, we sat down to puzzle out our pieces, beginning with the templates for our snowflakes...

Drawing out the templates for our snowflakes.

Next, we needed to get busy measuring and cutting our strips of glass...

 

Serious AND fun!

I made sure to let everyone know that my pattern is a suggestion (for those who really need a plan), so they should feel free to elaborate on the design or improvise...

A little deviation from the pattern for really one-of-a-kind snowflakes!

Puzzling out the pattern and making up a new one!

This class also had a couple of younger kid-lings...and they did a great job!

I love seeing the littles with nippers in their hands:)

Yes! Kids can and love to cut glass!

See how much fun we had?!?

After finishing up the session, it was time to transport the snowflakes back to the kiln...

Snowflakes in the kiln ready to melt.

In my previous post, you can see images of the snowflakes in the kiln at various temperatures. This time I was able to catch the kiln at it's top temperature. You can see that the glass has all changed to a  reddish-orange color (except for the clear).

A glance inside the kiln at 1400º F.

After the kiln has done it's job, and come back to room temperature, I can open it up and survey the results...

This detail shows you how the glass rounds out at the edges as it fused together.

Thanks to everyone that came to play!