Stargazing

[Judy K]

Nice! too bad we have to wait so long to see what happens. :(

[Kev]

Yes Anne..very similar indeed except it is with opal frit,

I have to find  something to do with all the scraps I'm accumulating. I could be making frit for a long time unless I come up with another idea.

[Kev]

I know! These fusing schedules take forever it seems.

[Kev]

I think I need to rename this piece "Running Moon"...lol. Once again the moon ran. Onward to damage control. I'm going to sand blast the moon out of it, but it will also mean the aurora will have to go as well. I think in it's place I'll fill it in with frit ....not sure yet. won't know till I do it.

[Lou Ann]

okay, where did all the green come from again??? what happened to the prettier bluish gray you showed yesterday?

I'm starting to think I'm lucky my electrical wiring can't handle a kiln because all these "faux pas" would make my stomach hurt (not to mention my wallet).

[Becki]

Kev, is there something under your moon that is making it lose it's shape when it's heated?

[Kev]

LA..because I had to go so high with the temp to fuse the new moon, some of the paint burned off as I suspected it might. I believe the moon is becoming distorted because of the irid coating of the aurora.....so....today I blasted the moon and stars completely off of it.

Now going from night to day....I filled in the blasted area with cobalt blue frit with white clouds and some patches of blue within the wooded area. I suspect I might loose more of the black paint in this fusing as well. In person the wooded area is actually quite nice. We'll see how this turns out and go from there. If I have to apply more paint I can do that too.

This will renamed either: "Birch Pavilion" or "God's Pavilion"

One only learns by doing.....

[Rebecca]

You lost me when you got rid of most of the green.  

Rebecca

[Kev]

There is still a lot of green present on it actually, but I know your a BIG green fan...lol

[Tre V]

Great creativity..and a very good save! I like it.

[Rebecca]

There is still a lot of green present on it actually, but I know your a BIG green fan...lol

Yeah, I'm hoping more of the paint disappears.  

Rebecca

[Kev]

Disaster has struck...I just looked at it...it split in 2.  I turned the kiln off and called it a day. I'm not really upset with the result..I'll just move onto something else. I might be able to make something smaller from the pieces.

I have a better design in mind for another attempt in a few days.

[Judy K]

So Sorry!

I loved the aurora and moon. I hope you pursue that farther.

[Kev]

I may try another piece with those elements, but plan it better.

[Judy K]

I can see where the base having some irid and some glass under it would cause it to go out of round. The irid resists accepting the glass on top until it gets tiny cracks in it, which is well after the plain glass accepts the glass on top.

I did something recently, though I can not remember what it was, that I contout fused to hold the shape I wanted, then the next day took it to a full fuse to get it flat. It worked.

You could also make it in two layers. Score a moon sized hole in the middle of a clear glass. Now make four scores out and break out the center hole. Put the clear back together and replace the hole with a white circle. Don't use your grinder. This way you have a very nice round circle and the seams radiating out from the moon should fuse together nice.

Now place this on the irid / sanded glass aurora. Fuse to 1420, no hold. Do a really good bubble squeeze for the uneven area of sanded glass and irid. This should fuse it enough to seal edges, but not be hot enough to encourage the irid to try to wick up through the seams.

Now you can add stars or whatever and full fuse the baby flat in a second firing and not have to worry about moon travel, bubbles, uneven volume, or irid seapage. Just an Idea.

[Kev]

Thanks for the ideas Judy...I'm sure I will refer back to that post.

Here it is ..broken in 2. The whole thing was a bit of a disaster to begin with....LOL....but I do love the wooded areas. Had I really thought the process through I should have cut the tree trunks so that they narrowed going up to the sky..I realized that as an after thought (but something learned)...The blue frit in the wooded area I see was not going to be a success either as it petered out to nothing. The center area is kind of cool even though I did not complete the fusing cycle....I did learn that if you want to get a really textured look, like you might do with white to represent snow, fuse it to 1375 with no hold. It's enough to stick it together and maintain it's shape and texture (another thing learned).

What fascinates me the most it the perfect symmetry of the crack..look at it...it's exactly the same on both sides from end to end. If it were not for the bit of frit that slid off it would fit back together perfectly. I don't have any intentions of trying to stick it back together, but will cut it up and make something else with parts of it. As I previously said, I really love the wooded areas and I was thinking taking small pieces of that and making pendants or bracelets with it might be kind of cool. There is a lot of color play in it, so it might look a little impressionistic when used in small pieces. I might even be able to add pieces of it to other projects....good to have possibilities. So...with all that said, it is an expensive way to learn things, but you get nothing in life for free..and knowing me, I'll probably do it again before it finally clicks..LOL

[Audrey]

SO sorry Kev. You will find something to do with it. Put it out of your mind for a while.

[Kev]

Thanks Audrey..I'm not really upset at all. I'm already thinking of the next attempt.

[Marsha]

Dang Kev!!!!!       

[Kev]

It sure does Marsha. ..LOL