night out

When I was a kid, most of my Saturdays were spent in a roller rink. I loved roller skating.  I knew that my husband also enjoyed skating when he was a he was a kid, but the last time he was on skates was when we first met and I had bought him a pair of rollerblades.  I think he used them a total of one time. As for myself  I have always owned a pair of skates and occasionally would my kids skating in the park, but over the years my skates have done nothing but collect dust.

Last week my co-worker told me that there was a roller rink that had adult night skating, and it wasn't too far from my house.  Well, I asked my husband if he was willing to go and I got an automatic "no" followed by a "yes".   That's all I needed. When I got home last night I cooked the quickest dinner possible and was ready to go :) I think he was reluctant at first, but when we got there and started skating we had a great time. My hubby was a bit of a show off skating backwards and all :)

It was also nice that the majority of the skaters seemed to be over 40 so we fit right in.

#3 of 6

This one came out of the kiln this morning. I'm not sure if the picture is fuzzy or the art piece itself is, either way I'm happy with it.

Soon to be an empty nester (again), but before you go....

I have been trying my best to spend as much time with my younger two kids before they back to college this weekend.  I took the day off from work yesterday to take them shopping for some basic necessities, and helped my son go through some things he never unpacked from last semester.

I also have been telling them that I was going to take them to the new location of Tip Top cafe since the place opened in our neighborhood this summer.  This is their 2nd location (the original opened in 1938) and the cafe is known for great food, especially the chicken fried steak, which is bigger than the plate it's served on! The desserts are to die for! You have to place your dessert order when you order lunch or you might risk the chance of them running out of  their famous ice box pies. My daughter and I split a lunch just to make sure we had room for pie! I think we all had a pretty good tin time together.

All summer long I had the idea that I wanted my artistic daughter to create something with glass. Her response has always been, "but Mom, that your thing..." Well last night she was reluctantly persuaded to come into my studio and create something in glass.  For her first time shuffling around powders using  the sgraffito technique, I was pretty impressed.   I'm glad that she worked with me in my studio before she leaves to go back to school, it was nice having her company while we created art together.

my daughter's work on glass 7"x9"

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I got up early today looking forward to working in my studio. This is the second piece that is still cooling in the kiln. I opened the kiln just long enough to snap a quick picture. I'm not sue how I am feeling about the leaves, but overall I do like the way it turned out.  

On another note, I have been practicing with watercolors in the evenings and over my lunch breaks during the week.  It's a very difficult medium to work with and I have come to the conclusion that I must practice a LOT to try and achieve that natural flow. It seems that I can create beautiful backgrounds and mix the paints to look like water or sky, but when I try to put a specific image on the paper/canvas I have the hardest time. I hope that over time I can learn how to make things flow.

#1 of 6

Sometimes, even when I have the knowledge I just don't think things through.  For example, depending on the thickness of glass and how high the temperature goes up, the glass has different levels of shrinkage or if it is very think it levels out to 1/4 of inch if the glass is not dammed. 

The six 7"x9" "blank" canvas's are 3mm thick and I took them up to 1425 degrees, which is a full fuse.  Now they are not 7"x9" anymore, they are slightly smaller.....  They are too small to fit in the standard 7"x9"shadow box.  It was a mistake because I just didn't think about it. Now I am thinking about a custom frame that would allow light to come through the sides and still have a painted background.  I need to collaborate with someone.

This is the first of six designs. I am pleased with the outcome of this one.  I am still going back and forth of what I am going to title this series, but I will wait to see how the other five turn out before I decide.    Can you guess what plant this drawing represents? 

Kindness

This little watercolor of a yellow flowering bush was left outside of Press Cafe.

The message on the back:

"Kindness is a language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see"~ Mark Twain

Blank Canvas

I have been working in my studio, throwing around ideas, and finally decided to create six 7"x9" blank canvas.  I had bought a bunch of colorful powder glass a few months ago and wanted to test them out.  For each piece of glass I used two to three different colors and full fused them into the clear Tekta glass.  When I opened the kiln I was pleasantly surprised how they came out.  In the picture below you can see all the colors applied, but when I lifted them off the kiln shelf the colors were very subtle because they are transparent.  The most vibrant one is the orange and yellow.

Over the years I figured out that it is easier for me, and more pleasant, to design directly on the glass versus drawing something out and then applying that idea to my glass. Don't get me wrong, I am always sketching because I enjoy it, and use sketches for my stained glass, but I rarely use my sketches on my fused glass.

I currently have the green tinted canvas in my small kill cooling off. I created a design on it last night and I will wait till this evening before I open the kiln to see how it turned out.