Last Wednesday I finished a color theory fused glass workshop at Helios Kiln Glass Studio. The workshop lasted five days from 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.  The workshop was taught by visiting instructor Richard Parrish from Bozeman, Montana. If you’ve ever seen his work, it is beautifully designed, composed, and executed, which isn’t all too surprising given his being an architect-turned-glass artist.After stopping by the studio last year when he was teaching this same class I came to the conclusion that I had to take it: not only as a general refresher in color theory, but also to better understand how different colored opaque, transparent, and tinted glass interact with one another. (F.Y.I. glass does not mix like paint and can and probably will do weird things if you haven’t experimented enough to know what to expect).The workshop was fun and it was equally involved and labor intensive. I also didn’t realize just how physically and mentally exhausting it could be to stare at bright colors for hours at a time. We had several assignments to complete every day and had access to every color of BullsEye glass, with a few restrictions (no black or white).

We had a great group of people (there were 8 students, including myself) and we all learned as much from each other as we did the instructor. The point wasn’t to make an awesome finished cold-worked piece, but rather learn as much about color interaction as possible. These pictures are of the larger tiles I did after doing numerous smaller test tiles.Richard Parrish will be back to teach a design class as well. I am definitely looking forward to it!