Benzaiten Center for Creative Arts. |
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The Benzaiten Center for the creative arts kindly gave me a 6 hours scholarship. I cannot thank them enough. What a Great experience and unexpected opportunity this has been for me. I used it to take their second six-hour class "Glass Blowing 103" class.
Worked on blow and pull tumblers and added optic mold with a twist tumblers. Only one piece made it into the annealer and even it was not very good, but a very good learning experience.
Twisted Optic Cup Tumbler. (2019_03_19) |
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Justin caught some errors that I have been unfortunately practicing.
Justin also showed me a few new techniques.
Some added steps for the optic mold.
While cleaning up Justin suggested.
I warmed up with blow and pull tumblers, they turned out fairly decent for me but broke when removing the punties. Justin suggested that I keep the punty hotter as I work and suggested using a donut punty. Later I practiced making several of these.
Blow and Pull Glass. (2019_03_27) | Vase with Picked up Color. (2019_03_27) |
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We then attempted color pickup in optic mold, but I failed to realize how long is required to melt in the cold colored glass, so I only partially picked them up. As a result, we then picked up a few off of the marver (losing the optic ribs in the process) and made a vase.
I have been getting folds lines in the glass before the initial bubble. Justin suggested that I slow down the rotation after the gather to avoid getting "wings" and that I not press down so hard when marvering for the initial bubble. This worked really well.
Justin then suggested we go back to working on blow and pull but aim for an amphora shape rather than a tumbler. He re-suggested that I push on the bubble with scissors while blowing so expansion is in the bubble rather than the tip, and turn the pipe at the speed of the glass to avoid twisting (the rate it wants to naturally fall off the pipe?) when reheating.
I got a little better at getting in the jack line by putting it in after 1st blow and pull and taking less time by going straight to the scissors and skipping the tweezer pull.
While thinning he repeated that I should use small grabs and long pulls toward the center to not open the hole but also added go twice around. The 1st time cools the glass tabs providing something to pull on the second time around.
He also told me to cool the inside of the opening with the jack tips and the outside with the back of the jacks before using the soffetia.
Justin demonstrated to me just how far from perpendicular I am when flattening the bottom. He suggested not overhanging the pipe so far from the bench (verses overcooling the moil) for a better view. Finally, he told me, when removing the punty, to hit it with the knife as if to remove the punty (not just tap it).
Due to an unexpected personal issue I was unable to make this class. The kind staff at Benzaiten have more than made up for this by allowing me to watch demonstrations and letting me experiment and play from time to time. Again, I cannot thank them enough!
Tumbler. (2019_04_13) | Optic Tumbler. (2019_05_11) |
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Tumbler. (2019_05_19) |