blue sails furled, the stars spill through

October activities

2010-10-21T11:39:00.000-07:00

Tiny 4" tall teapot, with a flower implosion marble in the lid. My first teapot, it's purely ornamental. The spout is too low to be practical, but the lid is my best one yet. It'll be awhile before I make a teapot that I would dare pour hot water into.

This 11" lidded goblet used the last bowl that I made before sending my torch away for repair. Until my regular torch comes back I can't even spin a decent foot. I put this goblet together using a tiny torch, annealed it on its side, and it turned out crooked. Well, it would look better with a longer stem and a green foot anyway, so I'll fix it when the CC gets back.

Still, I like the colors, and flowers always make me smile.

Also, I started two batches of red mold ripened cheese. Red mold ripened cheeses are the really stinky ones, like Limburger, but I'm shooting for something milder in flavor. One batch was made like soft goat cheese -- lactic acid coagulated with just a few drops of rennet. The other batch was made like Camembert, with a little more rennet and cut curds instead of scooped. Now I turn them daily and wash the rind a few times a week with a brine-mold mix, and hope only the molds I want grow on them.

And, hey! It's October, so I've got a Bourbon Barrel Pumpkin Ale fermenting away.

gooey mold-ripened goat cheese

2010-09-24T15:02:00.000-07:00

White mold ripened goat cheese at 6 weeks. Tasted great! And a perfectly gooey center.

Watching cheese ripen

2010-09-18T10:52:00.000-07:00

white mold-ripened goat cheese at 5 weeks old.

4 weeks old.

3 weeks old.

Fresh soft goat cheese with Herbes de Provence.

Last month we got some fresh goat milk, and made 2 batches of soft goat cheese. The first cheeses, we coated with Herbes de Provence. The smell and flavors were heavenly! The second set of cheeses, we sprayed daily with white cheese mold (Penicillium candidum and a bit of Geotrichum candidum in a weak brine) until they developed a healthy white coating.

Now we're eating one mold-ripened goat cheese a week, to learn how long it takes to ripen under our conditions. It looks like maybe just one more week until the very center is ripe.

Even unripe, it's really delicious.

2010-09-18T10:41:00.000-07:00

9" lidded goblet with hollow stem.

Still working on goblets. I'm hoping I may at last have the hang of the "closed taper" bowl.

figure studies

2010-02-10T11:37:00.000-08:00

Working on human figures, mostly by doing leg studies to start. I was using clear rod, but it's easier to see what I'm doing and to work smaller too, if I put powdered frit over the clear.

The clear woman is 5" tall. I'd like to stay under 4" and use them in goblet stems or ornaments.

boro fish goblet and some glass eyeballs

2010-01-30T15:18:00.000-08:00

8.5" tall boro goblet, with a hollow jumping koi in the stem. This poor little fellow has been staring reproachfully at me for months, waiting for me to make a suitable bowl and foot for him. Well, now that this fishy is happy, I feel free to make more.

I was pleased to receive my copy of GlassLine today, and see some really nice glass eyeballs on the cover. Recently I read a tutorial on making glass eyeballs. Not the tiny murrini type, like this fish has, but big life-size eyeballs. Okay, it's kind of hard to keep them small enough to be life-size; mine usually end up looking like they belong to the jolly green giant.

Anyway, I realized that the back of the iris looked just like the front, so I could make a double-sided eyeball! A double sided eyeball has two advantages for me -- it should work well as a goblet stem, and also, I really dislike doing marble backing patterns. lol. I'd rather make another eyeball, in the same time it takes to melt in and re-round all that glass.

Here's a pix of some miscellaneous stuff that is currently stuck in a piece of styrofoam, waiting for a goblet to call home: a dichro beetle, some ~50mm wide eyeballs, and a flower ring that I'm still staring at and wondering what it needs. The eyeball on the left is double-sided.

Here is a pix showing both sides of the double-sided eyeball. The two sides don't quite match, but I think I know how to do better next time. And it's not like they'll be viewed next to each other.

I'm definitely going to have to try making some cat eyes next!

More Goblets

2010-01-27T12:25:00.000-08:00

Still working on goblets:

(Left) 6.5" goblet with Blue Exotic bowl and a 1" imploded purple-blue rose marble in the stem.

(Middle) 6.5" goblet/candleholder with Mystery Aventurine and Blue Moon decorating the outside of the bowl. Stem contains a 2.5" shell with a striped interior, Amazon Bronze exterior, and rows of Blue Caramel spines.

(Right) 9.5" goblet with a two part stem: a hollow urn shape decorated inside-out with latticino, topped with a 1" solid head sculpture.

I put the jumpy fish into a goblet, but I haven't figured out how to photograph it yet. Also, the red flowers have made it onto a 3" circle, with leaves, but it still needs... something...

It's so nice that glass will just sit there, stuck into piece of styrofoam, until I decide what to do with it. The rose marble stem in the first picture waited for over a year, until I made the right bowl for it.

Ornaments, shells, and butterflies

2010-01-02T11:18:00.000-08:00

Forgot to post any December pix. Oops. Made lots of flameworked ornaments, flowers, goblets, plus some stained glass and sandblast (the glass flowers above are in a recycled wine bottle that I cut, blasted, and painted).

Now it's a New Year. My New Year's resolution is to exercise, eat right, and finish working my way through Lewis Wilson's sculpture DVDs. Ha. We'll see how long any of that lasts. I've also got to keep working on my goblets. Cleaner bowl shapes and cleaner, prettier connections.

Lately, I've been working on glass shells, and though they're very time consuming, I really enjoy them. Grew up near the Chesapeake Bay, so I'd like to try making glass crabs too. Also, I'd like to make some ballerina ornaments next Christmas, so I'm going to start trying human figures.

Painted goblets

2009-11-23T14:35:00.000-08:00

More goblets.

The left two have been sandblasted and painted with porcelain paints. The right two have hollow stems.

Next time I should leave the blasting until after I've assembled the pieces, to avoid the flame-polished areas near the connections.

Still need to work on making my connections look better. But, the lips on the goblet bowls are more consistently round. The shapes of the bowls and feet are improving too.

I especially like the clear goblet. I think I'll make more in that style. Plus, I have a jumping fish stem that is waiting to be put into a goblet.

Cups and flowers, together at last!

2009-10-17T11:35:00.000-07:00

Not perfect, by any means. But moving toward the sort of artwork that I want to make.

8.5" candleholder or goblet, with 3" ring made of Dark Elvis and filled with flowers and leaves from boro frit and rod.

9" amethyst goblet. The diffuse light makes the top of the bowl look fuzzy. Weird, because it's not. I guess I need to add a spotlight on top of the photo cube.

Curves in all the wrong places

2009-10-14T14:05:00.000-07:00

Sigh.

2009-09-17T11:48:00.000-07:00

I'm playing with an EZCube, for photographing my glass. I've heard that glass photographs better with lots of very diffuse light. I'm sure I'll have to experiment a lot to get the best effect, especially when it comes to highlighting dichro in the goblet stem. I think the flowers on the lower part of the twist are lost in this pix of the twisted stem goblet. But overall I think I like using the EZCube.

Still working on some new goblets. I'm trying to put a hollow fish in the stem of my new goblet. So far I just have a new gash on my thumb, for my efforts.

My favorite fish, made two years ago:

September goblets

2009-09-09T08:55:00.000-07:00

Still experimenting. Still a long way to go. Sized 6.75 - 8.5" tall, at least these hold more than a thimble full.

back to goblets

2009-06-17T11:46:00.000-07:00

6 1/2" tall boro blue goblet, with gold leaf in the hollow scalloped stem.

Taking a goblet making class has helped me a lot. My feet almost always spin out well, now, whereas before I could use about 1 out of 4.

I'm going to experiment with bowl shapes for awhile, and see how that goes.

incalmo practice

2009-05-29T09:43:00.000-07:00

I'm really enjoying making tiny 3 inch boro teacups. I can experiment with striking colors and practice incalmo technique, at the same time. If I put feet on the bottom, I can pack a lot of practice into each piece.

goblet class

2009-05-11T10:12:00.000-07:00

Took a class last month at Glasscraft on making goblets. Wow. We had a great teacher, and this class really improved and broadened my skills with borosilicate tubing. Still have lots to learn, but... it's a good first step. practice, practice, practice.

The last part of the class we started doing incalmo technique. The footed bottles are mostly about 5" tall.

flower heart

2009-04-17T08:49:00.000-07:00

My first framework. The flowers are about one inch across, and colored with boro frits.

It's snowing again, so it was nice to find this bit of Spring in the kiln this morning!

pink rose

2009-04-10T09:29:00.000-07:00

My first flamework boro rose.

Also started my first framework that I will fill with leaves and small flowers.

I need to get my flowers hanging on the wall before Kaji goes exploring, and decides they belong on the floor.

lampworked summer sweetness

2009-04-05T15:53:00.000-07:00

Springtime in the mountains. Snowy, windy, sun-shine and warmth, sometimes all in the same day. But I've been thinking about summer flowers... and big ripe blackberries...

Life-size borosilicate glass scabiosa flower and blackberries.

Still working on assembling individual components into a larger sculpture. I'm going to try using temporary bridges to hold the components in place, while I'm fusing the connections.