Valentine's Day Weekend, 2014
Architectural Glassarts
Lincoln, Nebraska
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| Woven glass preparation - slumping the strips for our "Warp" pieces |
I was very excited to see interest for this kind of a class in Lincoln! Yea! Fused glass is coming! I can schedule more intermediate glass classes as long as there's interest, so let me know if you want more!
The first day was a very busy day! We had a lot on our schedule in order to get the kilns loaded and fully fired before coming back on Sunday to do more work. So, after cutting all the strips for our woven glass and talking about how to form them in different ways and design considerations...
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| Picking through scrap glass for our screen melts |
We pulled out the scrap glass and chose our color combinations for the screen melts. We had a couple of different set-ups in the kiln. The one on the right is a screen melt system from Master Artisan and the other is a homemade screen that my uncle helped me put together. Basically, we found the stainless steel mesh and cut it to fit the length of my kiln dams, folding the sides together so they lock. NOTE: It's very important to make sure you have plenty of kiln wash on your shelves and furniture, so the glass won't stick.
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| Screen melts - before firing |
I thought initially that it may have been stress due to an annealing problem or incompatibility issues that made the screen melt on the left side of the kiln crack up...but after examining the shelves later, I found some pits where I think glass has eaten through and attached itself to the shelf on a previous firing. So, not enough kiln wash on the shelf, and I think I won't be using that shelf for more high temp work like this.
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| Screen melts - after firing, with loads of kiln wash on the back |
After firing glass to such a high temperature, (screen melts go to 1600ºF and higher) the kiln wash gets embedded in the backside of the melt. So, thanks to Matt for coming in on Sunday and waking up the sandblaster in the basement for some sandblasting of our backsides :)
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| Matt took care of the kiln wash with the sandblaster |
After lunch on day two, the students gathered 'round the light table and puzzled together the mesh melt pieces, admiring the patterns created by the molten glass.
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| Gathered around the light table looking at our screen melts |
After loading up the screens on day one, we started our frit painting party! We had lots of frit to choose from...Carolina Frit from Slumpy's and Uroboros System 96. At the end of day one, we hadn't quite finished our plates, so we started up early on Sunday.
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| Frit painting paradise |
After finishing the frit plates, we moved on to strip cutting the "weft" pieces of glass for our glass weavings.
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| Cutting strips of glass for our "weft" pieces - glass weaving |
We also pulled some stringers on the torches to add a bit of flair to our woven glass...
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| Pulling stringers to add to our woven glass |
We finished up the day by working with powder wafers, creating them in a brand new way! I've been working with Streuter Technologies (the No Days guys) for the last couple of years to come up with the best powder wafer material for glass fusing. It's finally ready! My class got a sneak peek at it and came up with some great designs, too!
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| It's little Cyndi Lou Who playing with powders! |
Mmm-kay...nuff talk. The pictures tell the rest of the story :)
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| Chris's powder wafer watermelon |
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| Frit painted pieces are fired. The back side of the pieces on top, front sides on bottom. |
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| Woven glass and powder wafers going into the kiln. |
Drat! I thought I took a picture of the after in the kiln, but the camera went blank, so I'll have to get more pictures tomorrow.
