Thursday, September 16, 2010

Here's some of what I've been up to lately

Just popping in to show off some of the goodies I've been making. I've got a couple topics to write about, but not yet.


Metallic Scrolls on Creamy Ivory



Metallic Scrolls on Mirrored Red

And lastly, I've been doing some work with my new flat lap machine. It makes some really unique windows in my beads.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Studio Tour

I noticed a thread on the Etsy forums of artists showing off their workspace, so I thought I'd share mine. I always love seeing where the "magic" happens for artists. So here's where I make my glass goodies.


Above you can see my minor burner along with a bunch of glass in my workstation. I'm not the best about cleaning up when I'm done. When I do actually clean up, I can never find anything, so this works out. The green hose connects to the oxygen concentrator at my feet and the red one leads outside to my propane tank. The containers full of sand hold my mandrels that are dipped and ready to be used. There's a couple jars of pixie dust and frit hanging around too.



Here's my kiln. After creating each bead, it gets placed inside a 960 degree kiln to be held for 30 minutes or longer and slowly ramped down to room temperature. This helps relieve the stress in the glass caused by manipulating it.



Here's my jumble of tools. They're not exactly organized. Not even a little bit. I drop them on my feet when I'm reaching for them sometimes actually. The flame handled tools are beadrollers from Donna at CGBeads. I love them. They are fantastic for consistent sizes. I have several tools by Zooziis as well. I love the flat shapes as a nice canvas for scrollwork. Last but not least is my most used tool, the giant spoon I stole from the utensil drawer. I use this constantly to pat down surface designs.


Here's my 10 lpm Oxygen Concentrator.



Some of my glass rods. Most of these are Moretti, but I do have a little bit from everyone.



My reject pile. I need a bigger bowl. I was thinking of trying to fill one of those giant water jugs.



Here's my 1200 Cfm squirrel cage blower. It's attached to a hood above my torch to blow the noxious fumes outside. It's quite loud, but ventilation is too important to ignore.


This is Onny, the studio kitty. She's very helpful.




Here's where I take my bead pictures. There's normally a Cannon DSLR camera on the tripod.