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!