Soft glass... Hard glass...

Cat picture of the day… They love their treats!

Why I Like Fused Glass

Aka – I suck at organic art

Definition:  Organic art is things that you have to shape and form – sculpture, painting things free hand, etc. 

Brandie is really good at free hand things. 

I am not….

That’s why I really, really enjoy both quilting and fused glass work.  Use a ruler, cut your pieces to size and put them together using the method for that art/pattern/piece.  It works and looks nice.

Yet, I trying Torch Work – a more organic form of working with glass.

Beads: 

Every month, on the second Saturday (because there’s a price deal), I go to a studio in NE Minneapolis and work for three hours or so with a torch.  I took their basic bead making class and that’s what I’m practicing. 

I break a lot of beads – some shatter before I get them into the kiln to anneal, and some break after annealing.  Last time I broke fewer beads than I didn’t break – so it was a good month!

I’m collecting all of the broken bits.  At some point, I’m going to lay them out on pieces of sheet class and tack fuse it in the kiln.  I will buy a nice display stand and put the piece on display in my house with a placard that says:  “Mary’s Screw Ups”.  It will certainly be an original piece.

Here are the “broken after annealing in the kiln” beads from September.

But, in my defense – some of the beads I make DO turn out… they may not be the best, or prettiest – but I will do something with them someday and I’m proud that I made them!

Here’s the batch from September that DID turn out:

I am particularly enamored of putting dots onto the beads that stick out and I think I’m getting better at it!

Borosilicate

Fusing glass is pretty “soft” as far as glass goes.  You have to use glass that is all rated the same COE (Coefficient of Expansion) so that it behaves nicely in the kiln and doesn’t crack.  There are two COEs that people use with fusing – 90 and 96.  You can’t mix them and I take care to keep mine separate.  The glass rods that I get for making beads with is softer – 104 COE – and is often referred to as “Italian soft glass”. 

There’s another type of glass that is also melted with the torch and formed into shapes, etc., when hot rather than using the kiln – Borosilicate.  It is a HARD glass – 33 COE.  It is what paperweights and other things like that are made from.  I took a class in it from the same place that I make beads at.  They gave me a coupon for half off the classes and I figured since I like glass so much, it behooved me to try everything!

Again, I suck at organic art.

Here’s just some practice shapes:

Neither bad nor good – just practicing.

But, these are truly bad.  They are supposed to be icicle ornaments.  I have the technique down, but I have absolutely no control when it comes to evenness of shape!

They are still so going on the tree!  If I had to display bad ashtrays and coloring book sheets in order to be a good mother – these things are going on my xmas tree and all the kids better ooo and ahhh over them!!!

I was better at the mini paperweights.  I still have to work on my rounding of them, and get a little precision in there, but – overall – I think these are decent!

Plates

12 inch plates seem to have become my specialty in fused glass.  It’s a nice size, useful, and a large enough palate to really do something with.

However, I don’t usually use the 12 inch plate mold for them; I use the 14 inch plate mold so that there is a smaller border/edge/lip of the plate.  You can see what I mean in the following picture.  These are two of my plates – both using the “crackle” technique.  The purple one is done with the 12-inch plate mold, and the green one is done with the 14.  Notice the difference in the centers and the width of the lip?

Green Diagonal Plate

I’ve been playing with diagonals lately.  I saw a piece done in diagonals in a studio a few weeks back and I’ve just sort of jumped on it.  Diagonals are fun (and a little frustrating!).  The hardest part of it is that I buy mostly 12 inch squares of glass.  When I decide to make a 12 inch finished piece, I can’t cut a single strip of glass to make the longest diagonals.  Remember the Pythagorean Theorem from High School?  A squared plus B squared = C squared?  The middle of the 12 inch piece is a bit longer than 12 inches!  I have to carefully cut even width pieces and place them end to end.

Here’s a 12 inch diagonal piece that I did in greens:

I also did “My Style” embellishments on the top of it (stringers melted into shapes).

Green “Mosaic” Plate

I’ve also been using this technique a lot.  I put a border on a clear (or opaque) square of glass, sift powdered glass into the center, and then cut up lots of small pieces and lay them out.  It’s an excellent way to use up all those little odd bits that I wind up with! 

Here’s a picture of my latest fused mosaic.  This too is a 12 inch square plate slumped into the 14 inch plate mold.  Yes, I used some of the bits from cutting 45 degree angles on the green glass in the diagonal piece right about this.

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Shameless Plug

I now have an Etsy shop for my glass!!!

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The shop is FridayDesigns2012. 

And Another Brag

We had a dinner party at the house a week or so ago.  Four of my 12 inch plates were used to serve the delicious Middle Eastern food that out house guests cooked for us.