Glass Trailerwhere stained glass art is made

As much as I enjoy checking out the latest and greatest in glass art, I rarely get a chance to play that much with anything new. Enamels aren’t new but I still never got around to trying them out. A few weeks ago I ordered a sample pack of all different colors. Surprisingly they were somewhat costly for little bags of powder! No wonder I don’t get to try new things that often!

Before I research and try something I like to just figure it out on my own before someone tells me how I’m supposed to do it. Powders are pretty straight forward so I wasn’t really worried on messing up anything.

I started by creating some simple templates. I like stars, so I decided to start there. I cut one big and one small one. The small one is about 1″.

I tried mixing the powder into some Klyr-fire or stringer medium. I accidently dumped a bit too much in so my first attempt (the yellow star on dark glitter green) came out a bit smudgy and oozy. So my second attempt (see red star with orange ring on black below) was to just brush some of the Klyr-fire on the glass and then tap some of the powder on… like confection sugar! That worked much better so I randomly played with colors on some scraps for the remaining two pieces.

Oh and then I found some stringers on my work bench so I piled some of those on a scrap piece of glass too, lol.

Each one had their own issues; this is obviously going to take some practice. For instance, the red star had one of its arms break off as I pulled up the template. I tried putting some more enamel down but in the end it didn’t really help. I’m just learning so I didn’t really care THAT much.

After firing I was surprised just how predictable they turned out. Pretty much exactly what I expected…

And a close up:

Mine all turned out like sidewalk chalk on glass. But, now that I’ve played I can go back and research the best methods and give it another go. I’ve seen some amazing final pieces so I’m hoping I can pick up a thing or two for next time!

The weekend is upon us and I’m hoping to get plenty done in the trailor this weekend.  The wizard is still staring at me angry that he hasn’t been put together yet.  Orders are coming in and some things have gone out.  Friends seem to be coming into town this weekend from all over, which may be where I lose my time.  Hopefully I’ll still be productive!

I thought I’d just make this quick update and share the latest pendant to come out of the kiln for a client who wanted a simple necklace.  Dark green sparkle with a white/lime swoosh on top.  I really like how it turned out and I may have to make myself one

I finally cleared out some of my current projects from the trailer and found time to take photos… or at least try too.  I really need to save up and get a macro lense, it’s not very easy with the one I have right now.  The focal length is pretty large and I feel like I’m standing halfway across the room and zooming in to get a semi decent picture.

I was playing around with some glass and decided to make my friends some pendants.  I made a kiln full and these are the ones they selected as their favorites.  Part of the fun was inviting friends out to the trailer to design their own!  It’s a really simple project that anyone can do.  I precut some blanks for them to decorate and threw some materials at them (figuratively, glass shouldn’t be thrown!) and let them ‘have at it.’

I have more in the kiln right now to give away with some of my recent orders that need to be shipped out.  I’m excited to get back and check them out.  I modified some of the kiln settings, so hopefully it isn’t filled with pendants of crapola.

FINALLY, my sushi dishes are complete.  I kept putting them in the kiln whenever I could fit them in with something else.  It was a project that I knew would eventually be done.  I have a small kiln and only 1 sushi dish mold to work with, so it would going to take a while.

Some of these I just love, some not as much but I really liked the project.  These are what I call the “Let the glass guide you” dishes.  It’s really quite zen if you think about it…. or maybe I’m just full of crap!   For these I took a beautiful piece of glass that had plenty of swirls in it and let those swirls dictate the final design.  Cutting out sections (see what I mean here) without replacing it swill create mis-shaped pieces when they come out of the kiln, but that’s part of their character.  Besides, it provides a nice resting place for your chopsticks.

And that’s it.  Plenty of things in the works and plenty more coming up as orders come in!  Stay tuned.