Lambs :)

I promised an update on the sheep as well. Here's Nory with her new triplets :) and yes, the top one is in fact sleeping on Nory's back

Tuppence, the first lamb, is Penny's, but he won't stay still long enough for a picture

While I'm on the topic of animals, here is Pleca (a Plecostomus). In the aquarium world they catch on to fads very slowly, but here she is planking. The middle grass is behind her, not touching her.

Whew

So, metalworking. Finished a ladle a week or so ago, and have been working on joints and forge welding.
I'm not going to cover everything today though because it'd be too long. For the ladle, first thing we did was make a taper on one end of a length of metal. To do this we heated it up in a kiln. I've been using a gas kiln because that is where one of the shorter anvils was located, but some of the class use coal to build fires. Once it is nice and hot, one is supposed to brush of the oxidization flakes with the metal brush shown below. That was the single most challenging thing for me to do the first day. Jamming one's hand along a red-hot poker is unnerving. Also, if done properly, this sends sparks everywhere. I got the hang of it the 2nd week though. Gloves help. Once it's been brushed (and it's hopefully still hot) you hammer it it to the shape you want. As mentioned last post, that is easier said than done. Since the metal heats up, we used tongs to hold the end instead of our hands. Most of my tools can be seen below.

Eventually, after much pounding away, I managed to taper one end, and flatten the other, the tapered end would attach to the bowl of the ladle, and the flattened end would be decorated

All that took me about 6 hours . The Instructor did it in 20-30 minutes. 

Metal Forging

Well, my stained glass painting class is over, a fact which I much lament. I did however get some glass paint of my own, so I can practice a little. There isn't much since it is rather expensive, so painting won't be a weekly endeavor of mine. I have, however, started a new fine art class. This term I am learning the basics of metal forging a.k.a. blacksmith skills.

Our first project is to make a ladle out of two pieces of metal, one for the handle and one for the bowl. I have some weaknesses and some advantages in this area. My strengths are as follows: a knowledge of cookware, decent eyesight, a general appreciation of heat, and that's about it. My weaknesses are a complete lack of respectable arm strength, my wrists in particular could belong to a toddler; soft hands that haven't had any reason to get a callus from anything other than a pencil for years; an unfortunate tendency to glow (Only horses sweat. Men perspire and women glow.); small hands; a terror of fire and glowing heated metals; and a clumsiness which isn't helpful when handling of either of the aforementioned fears.

Well, despite the fact that I might be a little disadvantaged, I am loving this class. What other class do you get to whale on a chunk of glowing metal? Or make fires? I'm hoping that after a few classes in my wrists will shape up and I can start working on shaping the metal instead of just hitting it. Assuming I don't melt my camera somehow, pictures will follow

And Class is Over

The class has ended, but my last window (an angel) hasn't been completed. The teacher is going to keep the lab and materials available to us over next term so that any students who aren't finished can work on their windows. I will post final pictures soon, but I don't currently have them all. None of the widows have been cemented or puttied or whatever it is called either (where one puts stuff between the leading and glass to prevent movement). It was one busy exam week, but this coming term is going to be pretty neat. I'm taking a metal forging class for which I am very excited. I've never worked with metal before, so this is going to be a very new experience.

Lambies and Fishies and Windows, Oh My!

A lot has happened recently, we got a new lamb (pictures will follow shortly), I finished my Madonna window, I started my playing card window, and I made some new plans for my aquariums.

For my Madonna window, Mr. Leap showed me some metal embossing plates that I could use to make a cloth pattern by laying them down over a matt and pulling around them. I also added some silver stain to the Madonna's face piece.

I'm less than satisfied with the cloth, I think it's too light. Overall it looks o.k. though.



My playing card has had it's 2nd matt pulled, but not fired yet.

 This coming week we are going to start an angel window, and try to get it finished before the trimester ends. I have my doubts about whether or not that is going to work. Can't hurt to try though :)

I'm really excited to be getting a new 50 gallon tank, with accompanying filter and fish this week (so, with my 30 and 20, I'll have 100 gallons of aquarium in my room) I have a tiny room, so it is going to be somewhat overwhelming, but my two passions are stained glass and fish, so I'll be happy. I am very careful about making sure I have enough space for my fish, so right now I actually only have 6 fish total in my tanks, so my room is less fishy than could be supposed. I think I mentioned this earlier, but I've got 2 small goldfish in the 30 gallon, and a Golden Algae Eater with a changing number of Danios in the 20 gallon. This incoming tank is inhabited in part by a 6 inch plecostomus, which I'm excited about, because I really like plecos. I'm thinking about starting to use sand in my tanks, rather than gravel. It seems like a pain as far as filtering goes, but it will be better for the fish. I'm thinking I'll try out Estes Marine Sand. Reviews I've seen have been pretty good, and I really don't want to injure any of my fish with bad additives or sharp edges. Wish me luck!

Last class I did the second matt for my cat faces, I like the end result, it isn't perfect, but it's satisfactory, and that's better than most of my recent artistic endeavors. I also started to cut pieces so that I can do a window with the actual Madonna face in it, because I really like that one.

This is tracelined, with one layer of a water and paint matt, which was pulled, with an second coat of paint and water based medium (D1368) to add some darkness to some areas.

Matt Layer 2

So I've had three classes since I last posted, and I've gotten a lot accomplished. We learned how to apply a 2nd layer of matt, which was really neat. By using oil based paint, both layers can be put on before firing it in the kiln. Fortunately, we didn't have to do that. Having to redo 2 layers in case of a mess up would have been awful. We just used the technique on top of our already fired base matt. We also started to cut the lead pieces for the 9 piece window, and put it together.

In today's class we started to matt our animal faces (which will replace the Madonna and child in the final product) and we saudered our 9 square window. I really don't like saudering. All the hard work I put into the window seems pointless when I can't get the seams to look neat. They are invariably lumpy and ridgy and scream "I don't know what I'm doing!" Oh well, with any luck people wont be looking at the seams.