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Hi, my name is Ed Donovan I'm here at DC GlassWorks. You can find us at dcglassworks.com. We are a public access glass blowing facility, we also do metal and metal-casting and welding. We are primarily a teaching facility. We want to share with people the magic of glass blowing. It is an amazing substance and today I'm gonna be talking to you about glass-blowing. So do you need to go to class or glass-blowing school in order to be a glass blower? Yeah, kind of. Um, there's not a lot of common sources of information for glass and it's certainly not a natural material to work with. It's blazing hot. Um, it takes, uh, a little bit of information to get to know the material. You want some tricks. You want some tips, um, from an instructor. Regardless of whether it's a university or a more informal setting like we provide here at DC GlassWorks, uh, you don't have to spend a lot of money learning how to blow glass, uh, but you definitely want somebody sharing with you the ideas that make glass blowing the very basic understood - the basic understandings you want to get from somebody. Uh, trying to figure it out on your own would be really prohibitively expensive. Um, it would take you quite a bit of time and I think you would get very frustrated, uh, not having any idea of what you're supposed to be doing. Uh, so just even just a six-week basic course or, uh, we offer weekend workshops, in which we teach you the basics. After that, you can come in and experiment; have fun with it. It's an amazing material. Um, you don't have to learn a whole lot from a university or a structured course, but it's really important to get the very basics so you have an understanding of how to use the tools; how to use the glory hole; how to use all of the varying things that make glass blowing possible. Um, I think without that basic knowledge you'd be kinda lost.

1. Introduction to Glassblowing
2. What Tools Do You Need?
3. How to Find a Class
4. How to Find a Job
5. How to Pick a Kit
6. How to Rent a Studio
7. Where Is the Best Glassblowing Museum?
8. How Much Do Glassblowing Artists Make?
9. Is Glassblowing School Necessary?
10. How to Use a Blow Pipe
11. 6 Tips, Tricks & Techniques
12. How to Shape Glass
13. 4 Glory Hole Tips
14. How to Use Puffers & Steam Sticks
15. How to Use Tweezers to Shape Glass
16. How to Use Jacks & Pacioffis
17. How to Use Diamond & Straight Shears
18. How to Get Started
19. History of Glassblowing
20. What is Glass Art?
21. History of Handblown Glass
22. Can Glassblowing Be Done at Home?
23. Glassblowing Safety
24. How Hot Does the Glass Get?
25. How to Pick Supplies
26. How to Dress for Class
27. How to Marver Glass
28. How to Decorate Handblown Glass
29. How to Use Newspaper as Heat Protection
30. How to Handle Hot Handblown Glass
31. How to Handle Fallen Molten Glass
32. How to Color Handblown Glass
33. How to Use Blocks & Paddles
34. How to Blow Glass with Todd Hansen
35. How to Blow Glass with Ed Donovan

Learn about glassblowing from pros Todd Hansen and Ed Donovan in these Howcast videos.