Trickle Down Creativity

Or is it bubbling up? I'm not sure, I just know that it's back... let's see if I can hold on to it.

First of all, there was this glass fusing class that I signed my whole family up for. Susan Murphy was teaching her new glass fusing technique, along with another teacher, Brian, at Cascade Glass Art Center in Redmond, WA.

We learned how to decorate glass with powders and paints and stencils and a whole new world of possibilities opened up for me. I have to admit that I've always been a little snobby about stencils, except maybe for hand-made ones... but I now see the error of my ways. Stencils are my new best friend.

These photos show the pieces after the first day of class:





And here are the (mostly) finished pieces. I can still add more, and I might.







Interesting, right? So I debated and debated... do I want to get into something completely new, with all new supplies and materials? Finally it came down to this: This is something I can do with my son - he thinks his art passion is glass fusing. So I ordered hundreds of dollars worth of supplies. I guess I should show you what he made in class, check it out:









And then there's Frank's pieces - I really love this dodo bird with the flying eyeball and tiny wing. Frank's got some buried creativity in him too, just waiting to come out.



So... now we wait. There are a couple of slumped pieces that need to be picked up still. And paints and powders and stencils should be arriving any day now. But the muse had ideas and wanted to try them. SO I pulled out my acrylics and an old tree painting that I never felt was done, and a couple of stencils from Ben Franklin's... and started playing. And it was fun. Paint on canvas is much more instantly gratifying than glass, no kiln time... you see what you have withing minutes rather than hours or days.

Here is the tree painting I was never very happy with:



And what it looks like after messing around with it:







Let's see where this takes me...