Water and Winter (and a chance to win each month for a year!)

Winter Water Tower, Chicago
Fused Glass Sgraffito 'Frit Painting'

For today, January 14, 2014~ 
This is a piece I've been working on over the past week.  It's out of the kiln for the third time, and I still haven't decided whether or not it's finished.  All artists struggle with this indecision, but when we each make the final approval of our work, we sign our name to the piece and call it 'finished'.

That's a problem, because the odd thing about glass sgraffito drawing is that it is necessary to sign your piece in the powdered glass before it ever goes into the kiln.  What? 

It does feel a little disconcerting to be signing a piece that's barely begun, but I think it's far more beautiful to sign it in the glass itself than to skid across it with a Dremel tool later.  

So what happens to the pieces that get signed and end up in the junk pile?  People seem to want to know... so here's the answer.  The signature gets smashed off, and the piece 'goes to pieces' to make better things :)
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Don't forget to add your comments for a chance to win one of my glass pendants every month for 2014!

Here is all you need to do:

Please tell me your pet peeves, complaints, and 

irritations surrounding the subject of WATER.

Enter your response  in the "Comments Box" at the end of the post. 

Then, on the right side of this post, click on either 

"follow by email" or "subscribe to posts"

Pretty simple, no?
You'll get one entry per unique response between now and next Sunday, 1/19 at midnight.

Be sure to tell any friends that subscribe to add your name to the end of their comment, because you'll get extra credit for their entry.

Best to you all, I can't wait to tell you about the project!!

Tiniest of Trees for Today

Short and sweet today, I'm up to my eyeballs in orders and piles of glass.  This is a great thing!  These little fused glass sgraffito 'sketches' are tiny, only 2½ x 3½ inches, but they're great for testing color in the kiln without wasting a lot of materials. I've been worrying about my baby fruit trees surviving the cold, so sketches of warm weather trees will do nicely.

Today, Jan.3rd,  I learned that I have to set up my keyboard in order to type the 'half' symbol.  I thought I would be smart and copy/paste one from another site, but alas, it has changed my font size.  Lesson learned. I also tried mint tea for the first time and it's not so bad after all.

These pieces are available for sale in my Daily Paintworks Gallery

Starlight Boy

I finally got a decent photo of this glass sconce all nicely lit up~ and thought I'd share it with you.  Time to get back on track and in the mood to fire up the glass kilns again...