Glassblowing course
We took a glassblowing course this weekend. It was 20 hours over the whole weekend, 4 on Friday night and 8 on Saturday and Sunday. Glassblowing is a lot harder than it looks..there are about 3 different things to do all at once...if your attention shifts for 5 seconds you could lose the piece you've spent the last hour working on...and its very very easy to have the piece collapse in on itself..as happened many times this weekend.
It was a fun course, the first day we made paperweight...pretty simple but it's surprisingly difficult to get all the steps right, gathering the glass from the furnace, heating it, and shaping it...all without doing one little thing wrong or it gets all wonky...
By the second day we were trying to create blown pieces...it was much more difficult and we were exhausted by lunch...it tooks us two and a half hours to make one little vase thing...you have to heat it to just the right temperature...too long in the working furnace and it gets way to melty and ruins all the hard work you just put in...
By the third day we had it figured out and were able to make some pretty decent pieces...it was lots and lots of fun...but very hot ( the furnaces are around 2500F) and you have to be always careful about where you move and what you touch.
Kim shaping the hot glass with a bunch of very wet newspaper...
Our friend Lily shaping her glass paperweight...
Kim ready to catch the finished piece before it goes into the anealer overnight to cool slowly....from 900F down to room temperature.
Kim in the hot suit :)
Lily blowing her piece...it's very hard to start the bubble but after that is fun to see it grow...
Lily strategically applying gravity to extend her piece...
My masterpiece of the weekend...unfortunately it didn't survive the seperation process and cracked right through... :(
Kim working on one of her three excellent christmas ornaments...
The Final Products! The middle ornament was actually made by someone else in Corning New York (where we got inspiration for this course)
The two vases were made by Mike and the paper weights and coaster were made by Kim
It was a fun course, the first day we made paperweight...pretty simple but it's surprisingly difficult to get all the steps right, gathering the glass from the furnace, heating it, and shaping it...all without doing one little thing wrong or it gets all wonky...
By the second day we were trying to create blown pieces...it was much more difficult and we were exhausted by lunch...it tooks us two and a half hours to make one little vase thing...you have to heat it to just the right temperature...too long in the working furnace and it gets way to melty and ruins all the hard work you just put in...
By the third day we had it figured out and were able to make some pretty decent pieces...it was lots and lots of fun...but very hot ( the furnaces are around 2500F) and you have to be always careful about where you move and what you touch.
Kim shaping the hot glass with a bunch of very wet newspaper...
Our friend Lily shaping her glass paperweight...
Kim ready to catch the finished piece before it goes into the anealer overnight to cool slowly....from 900F down to room temperature.
Kim in the hot suit :)
Lily blowing her piece...it's very hard to start the bubble but after that is fun to see it grow...
Lily strategically applying gravity to extend her piece...
My masterpiece of the weekend...unfortunately it didn't survive the seperation process and cracked right through... :(
Kim working on one of her three excellent christmas ornaments...
The Final Products! The middle ornament was actually made by someone else in Corning New York (where we got inspiration for this course)
The two vases were made by Mike and the paper weights and coaster were made by Kim
posted by Mike Lepard at
10:34 p.m.
