Watch more Glassblowing for Beginners videos: www.howcast.com/videos/465891-How-to-Decorate-Handblown-Glass-Glassblowing



Hello, my name is Todd Hansen, we're here at the Art of Fire Contemporary Glass Blowing Studio in Laytonsville, Maryland. We are at www.artoffire.com. I've been a glass blower for about twelve years now. I've got several different lines of glasswork that I work on, and I'll be talking to you about glass blowing. There are a lot of ways to decorate hand-blown glass. You can start with a solid chunk of color on the inside, you can use small chunks of glass we call frit, you can do trails, you can do optic molds, you can twist those patterns up. There are a lot of ways to do it. Basically, you could go to any studio and talk to any glass blower about how they do it, and you're going to find a different way from each person, So, a lot of it has to do with technique, it has to do with personal preference. What the glass blower likes to do himself, and - or herself - a lot of the basis for decoration is really just personal preference. We've got lots of hand tools, you can pull and maneuver the glass, manipulate it that way. Again, depending on how you want your final piece to be decorated, you can use the frit, you can use the trails. Those are techniques that we call hot-glass decorating. There's also ways to work with glass after it's cooled down, called cold-working. You can grind patterns and polish patterns into the glass. You can also cut a pattern into a piece, reheat it and pick it up. That's a different technique called a graal. Basically, whatever tool you find in the studio, you could probably use it to put a decoration in the glass, and it's really up to you to decide what you want to do and how you're going to decorate it.

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.