Lampwork Cats

For those of you who know me- I am allergic to cats. For as long as I can remember, I have never been a fan. When I started making lampwork puppies, pigs, sheep, and cows I figured it would be a matter of time before someone asked me about a cat.

It took me a while to get the ear placement and shape right. But finally I think I got it.

As with most Pandora/Euro bracelet-style glass beads, they are made of 104COE Italian soft glass. This glass expands quite a bit as it is heated which is okay as long as the entire piece expands at the same time. If one side is heated more than the other however, the bead will crack, and four-letter words will flow.

The kicker in sculpting these tiny little animals is that they crack very easily while in the flame and kiln. Problems arise when putting small details on the bead, such as the eyes and mouths of the cats. It's difficult to take your time to get the details right without letting the back side cool down too much. The entire bead needs to be taken back into the flame and warmed- being careful not to over heat the small ears and noses to the point where they soften and change shape. It is this reason that it is not uncommon to get less than 50% yield out of a batch of animals. That's right- make 4, sell 2, throw 2 in the garbage.

As I practice with a particular character, I tend to get faster at it. This means that I can whiz through the details almost like riding a bike, and focus more on keeping the bead evenly heated as I go.

I am always amazed to see the work that an experience lamp artist can produce.. with such defined shapes, rich details, and of course absence of cracks!

Happy lampworking (with lots of pratice)!

Implosion Explosion!

As I've practiced my borosilicate implosion pendants, I've started to post pictures on facebook. Almost immediately I started getting requests to buy them. This is great for me because.. well, what am I going to do with a pile of pendants?!? I don't wear jewelry aside from a wedding band and college class ring. Secondly, the sale of these pendants pays for the glass they are made out of, plus a little more to start the next project.

Perfect- Finally a hobby that pays for itself!

So here is my latest favorite pendant design. I like it because it is a technical challenge, but also it looks really cool when its done. Admittedly, it's not a "pretty" as some of the florals... but I'm sure the next designs will take what I've learned and improve my other designs.

This pendant uses a technique called a "Tube Implosion". So, obviously we start with a tube of glass and begin drawing patterns on the end using colored glass. Here I've used orange to make the stripe, and silvered glass to make the dots. The colors of both of these glasses will change temporarily in the heat, and the silvered glass will "develop" really interesting colors as it is worked in the flame.

 Step 1: Drawing the pattern on the tube

Heating up the end of the tube will cause the glass to gather up into a ball, leaving the pattern pretty well intact, but changing its orientation. I use a marver to flatten the end into a disk called a maria. As you can see the spiral on the tube turned into a spiral on the disk.
 

Step 2: Gather and flatten to form a the maria

There is some "magic" that is done here to adjust the pattern into the center, shrink it down so it fits on the face of the maria (this is where the word implosion comes in), and to make it pop into 3D. These are common techniques in glass blowing. It takes a lot of practice and repetition to understand exactly how the heat will make the pattern behave, but finally I'm starting to get it to do exactly what I want.

Next I add the background color. Black really makes the orange pop, so I'll stick with that. I add a gather of the color on to the face of the maria, which will become the back of the pendant. Then using a fair amount of heat and my marvers, I flatten and shape the black down into the back of the pendant.

Step 3: Adding and shaping the background

From here I punty up to the back, flame-cut the tube off, shape the lens, and add a loop. Its a mouthful, but the result looks like the picture below. The round lens shape of the pendant really makes the pattern fill the pendant and jump out at you. Here the orange within the pendant as started to take on its final color, and you can see the result of the silver glass: A wispy white with purples, blues, greens, and yellows.

Step 4: Shape the lens and add the loop

All thats left is to clean off the punty mark and throw it in the kiln to anneal. Oh, and to start another pendant!

Satoshi Kamiya

The origami works of Satoshi Kamiya are intriguing to fold for several reasons. First, they are some of the most technically challenging models to fold. Not only are the complex, but his style is unique.. you'll find something you've never seen before in each of his models. Second, despite the technicality of his complex models, the accuracy and beauty of the finish product rivals that of Michael LaFosse or Quentin Trollip- both of whom are far less technical, but produce some of the most beautiful origami art I've seen.

 

"Lion" by Satoshi Kamiya

Folded from one 45cm square of 

'Saffron' Lokta paper treated with cornstarch

 "Orca" by Satoshi Kamiya

Folded from one 25cm square of

Black/White DUO paper

That's all for now! Happy Folding!

Windsurfing- A blast from the past!

I always tell people that I grew up sailing on Sacandaga Lake, mostly on windsurfers. I was going through old pictures recently and came across these... I thought I'd post them for fun.. and PROOF :-)

Tim meets Prism Glassworks

The guys at Prism Glassworks were in the local newspapers recently for winning an award from the city of Troy for rehabing an old building and turning it into one of the regions premier glasswork shops. Maribeth and I had our curiosity peaked, so we stopped in to see the shop.

These guys have some very talented artists on staff working in borosilicate to produce beautiful wine glasses, pendants, marbles, and pipes. At the back of their showroom is a huge glass window peering into their production shop so that you can watch the crew at work. Its a very impressive workshop, with several really high end torch setups... The big brothers to my tiny little GTT Bobcat!

After talking to these guys, I was convinced to purchase some borosilicate tubes and begin blowing implosion pendants, ornaments, etc. My soft glass experience really helped get a good start, but boro is definitely a different beast! One of the guys even gave me some scrap colors from his personal studio to help me learn how the different colors behave in the flame. A big thanks to him for all of his help- he's the kind of artist who loves to share his experience with an enthusiastic newbie.

 

My first Borosilicate implosion pendant!

Time to go pull last nights work out of the kiln, and practice some more!

Health update, 11/22/2011

Just as a quick update on my health:

Last time I was at the oncologist, my white blood cell count had climbed a bit faster than it had been. My doctor decided to order another scan before the end of the year. I had that PET/CT scan a week ago, and just got the results back on Tuesday. The scan showed no change from the last scan 6 months ago, which is a relief. My white cell count has only risen a little bit. It seems everything is going as expected- no suprises!

Thats all the news for now.

Paper Cranes

I saw this model in Origami Sequence #1, and just had to fold it! I started out with my first line of defense- white artists drawing paper. It was just too thick to make the thin little legs and neck. However I was satisfied that I could move on to more expensive paper.

 

"Crane" by Daniel Naranjo

Folded from one 40" square of

White Unryu paper treated with cornstarch

When I began folding just 11 months ago, I never would have thought folding paper cranes would have been so rewarding! This model really captures the subject beautifully, especially when it's balancing on one foot!

Folding LaFosse

I always enjoy folding a model by Michael Lafosse. The base is usually quite simple to fold, but after some interpretation in sculpting, the models are realistic and quite beautiful.

This particular model required Duo paper, which I attempted to make by MC'ing Royal Blue and Merlot Red lokta together. Though the final product comes out very nice to sculpt and fold, the rich colors bleed together. Next time I'll have to tr spra adhesive and maybe even replace one sheet of lokta for tissue paper.

"Red Throated Hummingbird" by Michael LaFosse

Folded from one 9" square of 

Royal Blue/Merlot Red Lokta

Still Folding...

It's been a week or two since I last posted. That doesn't mean I haven't been folding! I've spent quite a bit of time working on Quentin Trollip's "Grey Wolf". After one or two tries I was able to fold this model.. however trouble began when I tried to use just the right paper to fold it.

The first successful fold was completed using an 11"" square of Canson artists marker paper. Its highly sized and very smooth to the touch. Though it isn't the thinnest paper out there, it holds an excellent crease. I've found it to be an excellent paper for technical folding, but not so great for sculpted (wet folded) models.

Moving on to fold a final version of the model in artist quality paper, I ran into some trouble. Some of my papers are great for 100 steps or so, but start to soften and break down around 130 folds. This means some of the really nice details can be lost- like the toes of the Wolf.

So after trying several sizes and types of artist quality paper, I ended up with a Butterscotch colored Lokta, which had been resized using a cornstarch solution rather than Methyl Cellulose. I find I get a better crease from the cornstarch.

"Grey Wolf" by Quentin Trollip

Folded from a single 20" square of 

Butterscotch colored Lokta paper

Another recent fold is an old favorite- The Kawasaki Rose, which I have placed upon a simple longstem folded to my design from a second square of paper.

"Kawasaki Rose"

Folded from one 9" square of Merlot Red

and a second square of Grass Green Lokta paper

Bottlenosed Dolphin

What do you do with a nice big light grey 20" square of thick paper suitable for wet folding? A dolphin of course! I've folded enough 4 legged animals and multi appendaged insects. The dolphin in action pose struck me as a unique and interesting subject to attempt to capture in a wet folded model. The paper is actually almost TOO think, as the rigid layers within make it difficult to shape.

"Bottlenose Dolphin" by Quentin Trollip

Wet folded from one uncut 20" square

of home made paper.

Behind the torch once again

We awoke this morning to about 5 inches of snow on the ground! It's not even Halloween yet. Maybe it was the weather, maybe it was putting away the summer hobbies... but it sparked some motivation for Beth and I to get back into the glass studio. It's been a few months since we did any real lampwork due to summer schedules and activities. We are a little rusty, but after a few practice beads it's like riding a bike.

We've had several requests for Euro-style beads (Pandora etc). First we have been requested to produce a handful of breast cancer awareness beads. I have also have requests for sculpted pigs, cows, turtles, and dogs. It seems the fine detail stringer work is in high demand.

With the kiln stocked to the hilt, we take a break to play with the kids in the afternoon, and maybe even make some paper to fold!

Upgrade to 20" squares

The set of equipment I had been working with to make paper was about 9"x16". I made some great sheets of paper, but found that the aspect ratio was all wrong. I could get one nice 9" sheet, but then I'd have to basically junk the rest of the sheet.

Solution: Build a square set of equipment... and why not upgrade to 20" while I'm at it?!?

  

Here you can see the 20x20 deckle and screen frame just about to get its first batch of pulp. This is of course all made from scrap wood I found laying around the garage, leftover from a previous project. We didn't have a 20" square rubber maid bin to work in, so I made my own.. mocked up from some scrap lumber and a sheet of plastic, as I had seen in photos of the Orgamido studio. This is several advantages. One is it's cheap and easy, and thats for me. I have enough expensive hobbies to soak up any available money!

Here's the first sheet that measures about 19" square drying on the flannel blotters on the kitchen floor. shortly thereafter it was transferred to a drying rack.

Since my wife, Beth, helped me to patiently with the first pull, we made a second pull just for her. We pulped white kraft paper, and she creatively used shards of pink paper sprinkled about, and green cake decorating sprinkles which soaked tiny green spots into the pulp.

Aside from needing to acquire a new set of 20" blotters, I'd say this setup gets a thumbs up! Looking forward to wet folding this one!

Wet Folding

I sat down early on this evening frustrated with a massively complex origami eagle, which is supposed to take up to 6 hours to fold. The problem is, this is my second attempt and I screwed it up on the same step as last time.... somewhere around step 110. Ugh. 

I needed something new to refresh my motivation. I stumbled upon two models that peaked my interest- not for their complexity, but for their apparent simplicity. These models require very few diagrammed steps, but have a very artistic sculpture quality to them. They are little works of art.

The first was "Panther Mask" by Michael Lafosse. I folded this using the paper made during my last post. The paper was maybe a 9" square. it was thick and had some denim cotton content. As I started to fold this model, I noticed the thick paper seemed to soak up the force of my fingers as if it knew what I was asking it to do. I'm not saying I was creating some revolutionary masterpiece- far from it. But the paper felt like clay in my fingers.

I spent a good hour working this model, rounding in the shapes of the face- the nose, the cheeks, the upper lip. I just kept working at it until I was happy with the shape. I think I just found a whole new universe within Origami.

The next model I stumbled across is called "Cat" by Vietnamese artist Giang Dinh. This is the first time I did a "true" wet fold- where I used a damp sponge to wet the areas as I worked. For this model I used a 9" square of thick home made paper made from Kraft stock that had been treated with Methyl Cellulose. Though this first attempt is far from a masterpiece, it has considerably more shape and life than the mask did. It definitely requires much more artistry than technical folding talent. The diagrammed steps number less than a dozen! It really is too bad I'm not a cat person!

Final Sail of the 2011 Season

Well, we logged quite a few hours over the last few months, sailing late into the season and loving every (cold) minute of it. Since the blog is new, I thought I would post a link to this video which shot by a friend, Mike, as we sailed on Sacandaga Lake in mid October.

Here's a GPS map and some stat's from our afternoon's voyage:

Trail Map recorded while sailing on Sacandaga Lake.

First try with Denim

I started out this evening thinking I'd attempt to make stronger paper with longer fibers from denim. Thats right, scraps of old jeans. I cut up a handful of 1" squares, soaked them in water, then tossed them in the blender.

The result was a nice soft even pulp. As it passed through my fingers it tended to clump up, so I added white Kraft paper to the mix. This seemed to disperse the cotton a bit and reduced clumping.

I pulled a sheet using only 1/2 cup of pulp to see how it performed. It turned out quite thin. I ended up coating with Methyl Cellulose in the end to stiffen the paper up. We'll see what we can fold with that.

Next I pulled a sheet with almost 2 cups of pulp. I had wet folding in mind when I did this, and I knew 2 cups would be about the limit. The paper did turn out quite thick.I can't wait to try a mask or something else as soft and curvy!

 

Folding do it yourself "Duo" paper

"Duo" paper is simply dual colored paper- one color on the front, another color on the back. Store bought origami papers are colored with ink which can fade and break down over time. Using Methyl Cellulose, it is quite simple to glue one color of high quality paper to another.. making your color and paper choices limitless. Here are a few examples I've folded recently:

"Great White Shark" by Quentin Trollip.

Folded from a 9" square of 

Grey and White "Duo" paper.

"Border Collie" by Quentin Trollip.

Folded from a 9" square of

Black and White "Duo" paper.

One major point I'd like to make is that rich colors may bleed into the other! When making the Black and White Duo, I had trouble with the white becoming almost as jet black as the Black lokta. I overcame this problem by giving each sheet a thin coat of MC and letting them dry individually. Next, I brushed a thin coat on the white and pressed it to the black, and left to dry.

That's all for tonight. Happy Folding!

Recent Folds

Since I have just begun to blog, I thought I might post pictures of a few of my recent folds. These designs are the artistic work of Michael LaFosse, Quentin Trollip, and the great technical works of Satoshi Kamiya. I've been learning to fold for 6 months now, so I hardly consider myself to be pro. This is all just for fun!

"Squirrel" by Michael Lafosse. 

Folded from one 9" square of grey lokta paper, 

back coated with white acrylic paint.

"White Rhinocerous" by Quentin Trollip.

Folded from one 9" square of home-made paper.

"Ancient Dragon" by Satoshi Kamiya

Folded from one 18" square of handmade

red paper, marbled in black and gold.

"The Wizard" by Satoshi Kamiya.

Folded from one 18" square of 

white artists drawing paper.

Hobie Cat Hibernation

I spent the weekend preparing to store the sail boat. It's turned out to be a demonstration in procrastination. The boat is not even two months old yet, she's sailed all but 3 weekends since labor day, and I'm just not ready to put her away. However it's getting cold now, and I'm afraid that despite the incredible fall winds there are no longer enough boats on the water to make further adventures safe.

We have a fairly large two car garage- large enough to fit all of the kids bicycles, lawnmowers, snowblowers, etc plus a minivan and car- but not large enough to fit all that and a 17-foot catamaran.... or so one would think! Enter my grandfather- the great sailor, the father of tinkerers. I remember as a small child going to my granparents house and peeking into the garage door to see his sailboat suspended from the ceiling, high above the cars. He had built neat shelves to house the mast, the sails, life jackets, and all the other goodies associated with sailing.

So rather than leave my poor little boat out to freeze her rudders off for the winter, I've decided to follow suit. We have 10foot ceilings in our garage which make it near perfect for the task. Right down the center is a great runway on which to bring her in for take off by pushing the trailer in by hand and line everything up.

It was a fairly simple task, in theory. It ended up taking me an entire day due to a few mistakes and oversights on my part (lets just say I now recommend spending a few extra bucks on the full-quality pulleys!). But in the end, the boat was raised up half way where it could be packed and prepped for storage at its full altitude. The dual trampolines of the Hobie Getaway make a perfect place to store sailing related equipment and maybe even a little more. The sails, rudders, trapeze harness, life jackets, etc will all fit nicely with room to spare.


For those of you engineering-types, the boat weighs about 350lbs fully rigged. My plan was to suspend it from four ropes due to the size, each rope carrying about 90 lbs. The lines holding the front of the boat are tied to the fore beam using a trucker's hitch knot in order to easily adjust the height of the nose. They each go through a pulley directly above and head toward the rear of the boat where they join the lines coming from the aft beam.

With the boat fully down on the trailer, I tied Appalachian butterfly knot in each aft line and tied the front lines to the rear lines using a bowline knot. Now the aft lines are each carrying the load from the corresponding side of the boat. The lines head over to the wall where they turn downwards through another set of pulleys and meet on a load ring. A come-along winch mounted at floor level will pull this load ring down as it raises the boat up to the ceiling. I mounted a 2x4 to the wall to help take the compression load between the come-along and pulleys. Everything is well-lagged into the studs, including two "safety hooks" which I can place the load ring over to take the load off of the winch and eliminate it as a source of failure. In the end, the garage roof has a fairly distributed load about equal to two men standing withing 5 feet of the side of the attic.

Job done. Now to find something to do on the weekends until spring...

Starching Origami Paper

There are several reasons why you'd want to starch paper for folding... also a couple of different ways to do it. Starch makes your paper stiffer so it creases great for detailed or complex models, and can be used to glue two colors together to make "duo" paper (Not Foil!).
I start out with 1tbsp of cornstarch dissolved in about 2 cups or water over heat until it begins to boil, simmering/stirring for about 15-20 minutes. After the mixture cools, I put it into a spray bottle to be misted evenly onto my target.
I use a 2ftx2ft sheet of lexan I had laying around, though many people use glass. The lexan has the added benefit of being SAFE to move about in a house with small children. I spray the lexan down first, then carefully lay my Lokta or other paper out being careful not to get wrinkles. I spray more starch on top until the fibers are evenly soaked. The next thing I do is cover the paper in plastic wrap, then use a rolling pin to carefully push the bubbles and excess starch out of the paper. I remove the plastic wrap and the paper begins to dry.

I suppose you could leave it out for about 8 hours to dry in the open air, but I am way too impatient for that! I set the edge of the lexan on the floor and lean it up against the wall over a hot air duct from the house heating system. I don't see why you couldn't also use a hair dryer if you were motivated enough. In about 10 minutes the paper is usually dry to the touch, and peels off the lexan very nicely.
The result of this process is a crispy-stiff sheet of paper that is glass smooth on one side (the bottom) and paper textured on top.
If you read Michael LaFosse's "Advanced Origami" book, you will note that he recommends using a starch called Methyl Cellulose in place of corn or wheat starches. The MC works in much the same way as cornstarch, but it requires no heat and must be left to dissolve for 4-12 hours. Corn or wheat have the disadvantage of growing mold and other microbes which eventually can cause deterioration in the paper. A bottle of MC powder will run you about $20 at a good artist supply store or online. This is a purified chemical that does not deteriorate paper, and is commonly used in document preservation for archives.
So far I have found that the the corn starch makes the paper stiffer for creasing, where the MC is a bit more flexible. The preservation qualities of the MC are not something I'm quite worried about yet! I don't really consider my origami to be a fine work of art that should last generations. Right now its all about paper texture- and for the price, I'll stick with cornstarch for all but my very best work.