The 104coe murrini fusing experiment..... SUCCESS!

Well despite my concerns about fusing the miriad of murrini (I quite like how that rolls off the tongue... Miriad of Murrini.... yeah!)  I opened the kiln lid this morning to some sweet success!  Both sides of the piece were really cool with the bottom side maintaining the integrity of the pattern where the murrini sat against the clear glass:

And then there was the top side where the different glass sort of moved around a bit an squidgied the top of the pictures.  Green and Blue glass seems to be really prone to this moving around in a very viscous (not vicious) fashion, I am sure the techno-types out there would be able to say exactly why, but for me, sometimes I really like it and sometimes ....er.... not!

Here's a pic of the top side and you can see the distortion to the pics, and yet I still think it is pretty damn cool!

The next job will be to try slumping this into a plate mold, which I am now a bit nervous about given that I do not want to ruin this glass now its worked out so far.  I could be conservative and try with some other glass first...... but NAHHHH I will stick my neck out, scoff at the danger (danger of buggering it up that is) and dip my foot into the slumping waters...... ok, now I have slightly scared myself!

Have a wonderful day everyone, its sunny, warm and fabulous here in Sydney right now..... I am loving life!

Back from Crazy month... with a bit of sharks vomit !!!

Ascidian bead experiment

Yahoo, I am glad to say that I am home after a literal marathon of glassy goodness.  First off I was on the committee for the 2011 International Flameon event here in Sydney and whilst it was Motza fun.... it was also very exhausting!  If you would like to see some photos of the event http://www.flameondownunder.com/flame-on-2011-photos.html  or of course would like a chance to bid on some of the items of art created and donated for Spinal Cord Injury Australia then try http://www.ebay.com.au/sch/flameondownunder/m.html?_nkw&_armrs=1&_from&_jpg&_trksid=p3686 for the full listing of lovely stuff to drool over and maybe even buy.... LOL

 After spending a crazy time at the flame on with Robert Mickelson, Chris Arnold and of course Loren Stump (plus heaps of other lovely lampwork peeps), I then got to help out at the studio for Robert who is a really lovely bloke and a great teacher.  Unfortunately I didn't get to stay the whole time (friends wedding in Victoria) but the students were producing really amazing things!

After all my travelling around and being away from my own torch I have been rather desperate to melt some glass too and since I got home that is just what I have been doing.  I spent some time today on my first ever fusing project to give my new (and much larger) kiln a good run.  Here's a pic of the project before it went into the kiln.  I had some 104 sheet glass laying around and decided to use a whole lot of the knobby ends of old and crappy murrini pulls with the odd lump of "other" also all in 104 COE of course.

Sharks Vomit - Pre fused

I have decided to call this "sharks vomit" because it is basically a mish mash of all my scrappy ends and bad murrini pulls.  It had great potential to just all smoosh together and looks really foul, but then again... it also might come out rather fun!  If it turns out at all I am going to slump it into a greenware plate mold I bought a little while ago which I think might look rather funky!

Oh..... on a VERY happy note, my work has been accepted by the wonderful people at the Canberra Glassworks Gallery........YAHOOOOOOOO!