Glass Blown Flowers

Materials:

blowpipes
punty rods
molten glass
jacks
diamond shears
frit colored glass
workbench
marver table
wet newspaper
annealing ovens
glory holes
furnace
face shield
glass blowing glasses
Kelvar gloves
Note: Gini Garcia wore protective glasses throughout the entire glass blowing process, except when she took the flower out of the oven.

Steps:

1. Draw the flower shape, design and color on paper. The colors used are made up of assorted metal oxides combined with clear glass. The powder comes in various sizes of crushed up colored glass called frit.

2. Heat up the tip of the blowpipe. Heating the pipe takes three minutes. The blowpipe is hollow and made of stainless steel.

3. Open the furnace door and dip the end of the pipe into the molten glass. The liquid glass is 2150 degrees and glows. After gathering, shape the glass using a wooden tool called a block.

5. After creating a starter bubble, reheat the glass in the glory hole (a reheating chamber). The heating takes 30 seconds.

7. Reheat it again; sit at the bench, and with a pair of tweezers pull at the end of the bubble while turning the pipe (figure C). This action twists the colored lines on the bubble. Trim the end using diamond shears. All this takes two minutes.

8. Follow step 5 again leaving out twisting the bubble. This takes one and a half minutes.

9. Allow the bubble to cool about three minutes or until the bubble has stopped moving.