Valentine's Date Night at the LUX - fused glass plates

The Party Table!

What better way to spend Valentine's Day, than hanging out with your sweetie and being creative with glass?!? That's what we did this year at the LUX Center for the Arts in historic University Place, Lincoln, Nebraska.

Christy and Carl with an OU plate?

Six couples joined me for music, treats and fused glass fun! We all worked on plates (and pendants or sun catchers).

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...

Fused Glass Snowflakes at the LUX

The fused glass holiday season has begun 

at the LUX Center for the Arts!

   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...

Date Night in Fused Glass at the LUX

Getting to know the glass...

Cutting and piecing everything in place

Fused Glass Class at the LUX - Spring 2011

Finally got around to making a little video short/slideshow showing our spring fused glass class at the LUX Center for the Arts. Everyone had a great time and can't wait to do it again...after summer vacations are over!

Fused Glass at the LUX - Session 3 - Frit Painting...

Last week in class, we painted on glass with Glassline paints. This week, we experimented with painting on glass with frits using No Days Liquid Fusing Adhesive, Spectrum sheet glass and Uroboros fine frits. We used the techniques on the project sheet available on the No Days website to make fused glass coasters...but we slumped them to make cute little plates!


I took a little video of my students working, but I'm going to save that footage for a recap video for the whole class session. So, you'll have to check back for that...

Above, you can see the student projects on the top left side of the photo. Directly underneath are two test strips I did with what may replace Bullseye's French Vanilla and Aqua Blue Tint as my new play toy...Opaline. Then, my most favorite and epic piece to the left: a three layer stack up of 2" by 1/4" strips. This project was made much easier using a little HoneyDoo Zuper Glue to hold the pieces altogether. (That way, I didn't have to stack up all the pieces directly in the kiln, which would have given me a major backache, as well as been a huge headache!)


Above, all the pieces post-fire. You can see how the frits darken up a bit when they compress and fuse together. And the Opaline has gone a bit hazy to make some really gorgeous, glowing pastels. AND, I'm soooo happy that the stack-ups stayed in place!

Finally, the student pieces all finished after the slump firing:

Fused Glass at the LUX - Session 2 - Painting...

This week, we continued our exploration of fused glass by playing with paint on glass. While painting on glass is an extremely old technique that is traditionally used with stained glass windows, it's begun to edge it's way into fused glass as a way to incorporate images, patterns and designs into fired glass pieces.

We used Glassline Paints applied directly and with brushes, as design lines and as a wash. With the paints, you can use painting techniques like sgraffito, where you apply the paints and then scratch off a design, or if you're working on transparent glass, you can trace your design off of a pattern under the glass.



As you can see, the paints dry to look very washed out. However, when fired, the color comes back...


Depending upon how well the students like their outcomes, we'll incorporate these into tiles/coasters, or even cut them up to use as inclusions in our final project.


Much of my inspiration comes from quilts, textiles and fabrics. So, I tend to create larger patterned glass pieces to cut up into smaller design elements. Below, you can see the turquoise, orange and brown glass pieces have been painted with the Glassline paints...

Coming up next week, we'll continue our exploration of various forms of creating texture and design on glass with frit painting. For a quick preview of the materials we'll be using, here's a little demo video of frit painting designs on fused glass coasters:

Fused Glass at the LUX - Session 1

The first session of the Fused Glass Class at the LUX Center for the Arts began last week, and the students have their pieces back. We explored dichroic glass, and tack versus full fuse. So, without further ado...

The students created a few small pieces with dichroic glass, the coating on clear. I encouraged them to place the dichroic with the coating side up and the coating side down. Before the pieces were fused...

and after the pieces were fused (to 1440 degrees F)...We also made two larger pieces to be hung as sun catchers. The pieces weren't necessarily identical, but very similar. This way we could discuss the differences between a lower temperature firing and a higher temperature firing.

The pieces pre-fire...and after a 10 minute hold at 1440 degrees F...The second set was fired to 1480 and held for 20 minutes...

Fused Glass Sampler Platter Class

The LUX Center for the Arts in Lincoln, Nebraska is beginning a kiln forming glass (or fused glass) program this fall beginning with a Fused Glass Sampler Platter Class, which touches upon glass terminology, basic glass cutting skills, techniques and materials used in glass fusing, programming kilns for firing, firing schedules, and more. The Sampler Platter class begins September 21st and will be held Tuesday nights from 6:30pm to 9:00pm until November 2nd (no class on October 19th). The class will explore different materials used in glass fusing including dichroic glass, glass paints, fusible paper, glass powders, frits, stringers, dichroic slide, as well as different techniques for adding texture and working with torches and candles to manipulate glass. The class will meet for 6 two-and-a-half hour sessions to create sample tiles of different materials and techniques. Then, for the final session, the successful tiles are incorporated to make an 8" x 8" platter to be fired and slumped. The Sampler Platter class is suitable for beginners to glass fusing, but also presents materials and techniques for the intermediate glass artist, as well. To register, call Natalie Nelson, Education Director for the LUX at 402.466.8692 or online at http://www.luxcenter.org.