Here is my process for making a fruit.  In this case, I am making a peach.

Starting with a point (See my earlier blog entry on “points”), I heat and add layers and layers of a variety of colored glass powders to get a natural, rich peach color.   Heating and rolling the point in the glass powder builds up the colors, and when I am satisfied, I blow into the point to produce the peach shape and I remove one of the point handles and melt and smooth the spot where I’ve taken it off.  

Next comes the crease down the peach.  I create the crease using a regular table knife.

 Now I have to put a tiny hole in the back of the peach.  As I continue working on the peach, heating and cooling it, the air trapped inside will expand and contract.  The hole allows the expanding and contracting air to move in and out of the peach.  If I don’t leave a hole, the peach will either collapse or expand and pop out where I heat it the hottest.  

Next I place the hot peach into a grabber tool so I can remove the other handle and complete the peach.  I melt and smooth the side where the second handle was, and I use a colored glass rod to attach a stem, taking care to meld together the rod and the peach for a smooth seam. 

Finally the peach is placed in the kiln for annealing.  I will write about annealing in another blog entry. 

Once I have all the fruits, leaves and branches completed I then make the actual sculpture.   

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 14th, 2009 at 11:08 am and is filed under News, Technical Descriptions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.