Glass Working (Fusing and Lampworking)

[zipcat]

I think I posted something about lampworking before, somewhere. I don't see it here though..

Anyways. I'm back to living with the people who do all sorts of art thingies, so I'm back into my glass work. Only now it's summer, so I can't do lampworking. They've taught me something called glass fusing; which skips the torch and goes straight to the kiln.

This is lampworking;



See, you have a stick with clay and put glass on it.

For fusing it's much simpler. All you do is cut and glue pieces of glass together and put it in, letting it melt together. Most people make simple necklaces that are shiny, but my friend is really good with it. I'll take a few pictures of his work after it's put through the kiln.


For now though I have a pre-cooked shot of my first thing. It's a duck with horns.



It's for a friend who didn't get the birthday present I made for him because the mail sucks.

I can't wait to see how it comes out cooked.


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Ok, well, there was a bit of a mistake. See, different types of glass cool at different speeds, so if one cools faster than another and they're stuck together they crack. I knew that. But I didn't know that the glass I used wasn't properly sorted. Bah.

So there are a few cracks around the orange pieces, you can bairly make them out in the pictures. It's one piece now, but it'll shatter sooner or later.







I'll just redo the design later.

[Soultiller]

Hey, that looks pretty good! And that was your first time making something like that?

I have a question. Why can't you do lampworking in the summer?

[zipcat]

Yeah, this is the first time I've tried fusing. I really like it. With lampworking I can only make things as big as a small cell phone and usually only about the size of a quarter to fifty cent piece, so working right in the kiln is fun.

Well, see, I live in a desert. It's hot. I'd really like to not be over a torch in the summer. Even at night, when we work in the winter, it's just too much now.

[TBeck]

I could mail you some snow and then you could make an igloo to do your lampwork in

[James]

Hehe. TBeck made a funny.

That looks sweet, zip I wanna see more of your work :B

[zipcat]

Haha TBeck. I think I'll see enough snow later this year, for the first time in my life. Scary >.<



James I haven't been able to do this stuff in over a year, and I don't have any of my old stuff.. but I'll keep taking pictures as I go for you and keep them here.

I'm thinking about making a griffin.

That'd be such a cool advart.

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Ok, lets see. We did some more work last night. I made the head and body of the duck so that they would melt round this time. You can't really use a ruler and blade-thingy to cut circles. So I made a few other things, and have some pictures of my friends' work too.



My favorite would have to be the white and green X thingy. It came out really nice. All I made was the skull and bones thingy, because I was using my other time to paint and arrange the pieces for my next non-cracked ducky.

You can see on the face things the paint I'm talking about. It was fun testing that out. But once it's cooked the paint is as hard as glass. I used it on my original duck thing too, for its eye.

Here's an up close picture of my favorites;




And one of the thing I made;



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Wee. Ok, I redid the duck.




..now only to convince everyone it's a Duckling and not a Chicken.