How Christmas decorations are made. How glass Christmas toys are made. interesting facts about Russian Christmas decorations

For almost a year I have been working in a glass workshop, it is also an online store selling glass and related products. After the shift, you can stay and do something for the soul. My colleagues mainly make beads and beads, there with all sorts of spots, dots, flowers, stripes.

And I somehow have a neutral attitude to jewelry, but I like to make small animals. My favorite animals are turtles. I started making them six months ago and automated the process to the max. Today I'm going to talk about how that little red-shelled, pop-eyed one was made.

First you need to organize the workspace and choose from the entire set of glass exactly the one you want to work with. You need to work in tinted goggles, so it is better to choose colors in advance. Red is for the shell, yellow and orange for the simple pattern, blue on the left for the legs and head, and white, black and blue on the right for the eye.

In the picture on the left, a mandrel lies on a stand at the edge. This is a steel rod with a separator applied to it. Molten glass is applied to the mandrel, and the separator prevents the glass from sticking tightly to the metal. After the work is completed and the glass has cooled down, this separator can simply be scraped off with a diamond nail file.
Here is a mandrel, here is a burner (a mixture of oxygen and propane), here is a mandrel in the fire of the burner. All work is carried out under the hood, as we have eight workplaces in the workshop, and without the hood it would be very hot and stuffy. It also requires security.

Now I need to melt the glass. Usually work with two hands. In one hand, a mandrel, in the other hand, glass rods (for left-handers, respectively, on the contrary). When I want to take a picture of the glass, I take the mandrel out of the flame for a while, it won't die from it, it just needs to be reheated later.
When heated, different types of glass behave differently. The red glass turns black. The yellow glass turns red. White glass is translucent. And if the glass is heated further until it melts, then it glows with such a bright yellow light, like, well, I don’t know how, look for comparisons yourself, here in the third picture you can see:

That drop must be smeared on the mandrel. Melt the tip of the glass rod again. Spread again, melt again. How exactly the smearing process takes place and how to separate the drop from the stick - I will show it some other time, when the third hand grows up, which will take pictures. When there is a lot of glass on the mandrel, it is fused around the tip of the mandrel and such a half-bead is obtained. You need to get it out of the fire and make sure that the liquid glass is not glass. What if it's glass? Well, glass is glass, it's glass.

The black hot red shell is ready, I'm going to decorate it so that it has concentric circles of yellow and orange on it. I apply four large red drops of yellow glass and fuse them into the shell. By the way, on the stand is a yellow stick with a red tip. Don't touch it, it's hot. Very hot.

Circles are obtained as follows: drops are fused into an object. The drop (in the limit) is round; accordingly, the shape of the fused drop tends to a circle. Concentric circles are several drops fused into each other. The second drop applied to the first one is orange. And then the third drop, applied to the second, is yellow:

Well, how is it? And here it is:

Now the legs, tail, head. Is it a head? This will just be the head. Glass must be taken with a margin.

If not enough, then add more. It remains to tidy up the shape of the head and neck:

Then the eyes. First the squirrels, then the iris, then the pupil. First white drops, then blue, then black. Each time put into the fire and melt a little. The eyes are never the same. And they are very rarely not slanted. The size of the eye relative to the body determines the age of the turtle - the more googly it is, the younger it is. It's very funny, but it's true. I have turtles with very small eyes, they all look very grown-up.

Almost everything. Now it needs to be thoroughly heated and placed in vermiculite. This is such an insulating material that does not allow the glass to cool quickly. The glass must cool evenly, that is, the top layer and small external parts must not cool faster than the insides, otherwise the glass will burst. The turtle will cool down there for a few hours and I can take it home the next day.

This is how she turned out.

By the way, what glitters on her paw there, I don’t know. I'm still just a beginner in this business and do not understand the very subtle intricacies. It is quite possible that there was some special impurity in the glass, and such an effect was obtained. I would make a good detective. I usually focus on color, not composition. This turtle has a navel on its belly where you can insert a magnet (if it fits, I always confuse the diameters of magnets and mandrel) and then it will be a fridge magnet. It can withstand the weight of several sheets, that is, it does not rest on snot, the turtle is not very heavy. I give away such magnets to all my friends, and at home I decorate flower pots with beasts.

How are Christmas decorations made? Children from Nizhny Novgorod can get an answer to this question at the factory of glass Christmas decorations "Ariel". Here, all year round - in spring, and summer, and autumn, and winter - they make Christmas balls and funny glass figurines, which then decorate Christmas trees in different countries peace.

About how Christmas tree decorations, beloved by both children and adults, are made, the masters of the factory, where New Year celebrated non-stop, willingly tell and show to everyone. And there are quite a few of them: every day the factory accepts 16 excursion groups! About 300 kids different ages- from students lower grades to school graduates and students of technical schools - they come to the factory to get acquainted with the process of creating a Christmas tree toy.

"Journey to the country of Christmas tree decorations" begins with an acquaintance with the history of the Nizhny Novgorod Christmas decorations and the history of fishing. It turns out that the first glass balls appeared in Germany in the middle of the 19th century. With the help of a glass tube, which was first heated on a kerosene stove, and later on a gas burner, glassblowers blew balls of various sizes. Hot glass becomes viscous, and can take a variety of forms. At the Ariel factory, glassblowers blow 250-300 balls in 6 hours! Each ball is unique because it is made by hand and not by machine. To be convinced of this, it is enough to look at the bottom of the ball - there is a trace left at the place where the glass thread was twisted - or, as glassblowers call it, a "whisker". The second tendril - on the opposite side of the ball - is either twisted into a neat glass loop, or - which makes work cheaper - they are sawn off and covered with a metal cap, for which they hang the toy on the Christmas tree.

All balls are initially transparent, as bubble. They are dipped into a barrel of paint, giving a background color - red, blue, green or, for example, gold. And when the paint dries, the master artists begin to work. They manually paint the surface of the ball. It could be an image fairy tale hero, winter landscape or some architectural sights of various countries of the world.

Glassblowers can make not only balls, but also different figures. To do this, a heated glass tube is lowered into special forms - in the form of a bunny, a snowman or Santa Claus. Such toys are called shaped. One of the first molded toys that began to be made at the Ariel factory was the Nutcracker figurine. Then dozens of other very different figures appeared: various little animals, cockerels, goldfish, heroes, grandmothers with a pockmarked chicken, etc.

You can see all this variety of New Year's toys in the museum of the factory: about a thousand of various Christmas tree decorations are collected here. The museum's exposition includes both New Year's toys made and painted by Nizhny Novgorod craftsmen in different years, and old Soviet toys produced by different factories. Soviet Union. From these figurines, one can trace the most important milestones in the development of the country - the first manned flight into space, the massive sowing of corn - a symbol of the era of Nikita Khrushchev, and much more. At the exhibition, you can also see Christmas balls from different collections: balls with the image of Santa Claus and Father Frost - the way he is presented in different countries of the world; balloons with plots of famous fairy tales - "Three Little Pigs", "Little Red Riding Hood", "Cinderella", etc., as well as with the heroes of Russian fairy tales - for example, with Emelya.

A separate place is allocated for the "New Year's Khokhloma": balls and nesting dolls with the famous gold painting, glass spoons and even samovars,
which glassblowers managed to blow out of glass! In the same place, in the museum, you can see fragile Easter eggs and glass medallions with delicate Easter drawings.

Among the exhibits there are balloons depicting Moscow metro stations, made for the anniversary of the metro. On the convex surfaces of the balls, the artists managed to depict both deep metro tunnels and the splendor of old Moscow stations.

A special place in the exposition is given to balloons from the collection of famous people: for example, Vladimir Putin presented balloons depicting the sights of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod to German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. In a separate box are balloons with the image of Russians winter fun, which were presented to guests at the reception of Dmitry Medvedev.

And in the collection of Nizhny Novgorod craftsmen there are balloons with the image of Barack Obama, which were made by special order of the US Presidential Administration. The masters say that a special order for their manufacture was made by the administration of the President of the United States. The agreement was long and not easy: at first, the artists painted an image of Obama with a wide smile on the ball, because they knew that this charming smile was his business card. But the Americans said that the president in the image was “too cheerful” and asked to portray him more strictly. As a result, the option with a restrained smile was adopted as the basis. And a broadly smiling Obama remained in Nizhny Novgorod as a keepsake!

The craftsmen are especially proud of the unique New Year's balls dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the Bavarian crown. Images of Bavarian castles and their decoration, the crown itself, portraits of Bavarian kings were sent to Nizhny Novgorod for work. And the customers were satisfied with the results of the work!

All this is told and shown to the guys who came on the tour by the masters

Ariel factory. Boys and girls watch with bated breath as glassblowers blow out balls of various sizes and make shaped toys - figures of snowmen, bunnies, Santa Claus, etc. Factory employees explain the subtleties and secrets of craftsmanship.

And in the art workshops, in front of the guests, the factory's craftsmen manually paint fragile glass Christmas tree decorations. Children are told about how a drawing is applied, paints are selected, how toys are powdered with glitter and “gold”.

At the end of the tour, the children go to a master class, where they are given the opportunity to paint Christmas tree figurines or balls on their own. Then these toys are packed in special boxes so that children can bring fragile souvenirs home and show them to their relatives. Such balls become the best souvenir of a trip to the factory, where the New Year lives all year round.

Klavdievskaya factory is one of the leading factories in former USSR who were involved in issuing Christmas decorations(besides her, the Yolochka factory in the city of Vysokovsk, Moscow region is the most famous.) The factory was established in 1949 in the village of Klavdievo near Kiev and was originally engaged in the production of various products from laboratory glass. In the 50s, it was redesigned and since that moment the factory has been producing Christmas decorations. For the most part, these are Christmas balls, but the factory is not limited to them and can produce glass decorations of a rather high complexity. In the Union, the factory occupied the 1st place both in terms of production volume and area (then the factory included two more enterprises in Kyiv - in Svyatoshyn and Podil). The productivity of all enterprises per day reached the volume of a covered freight car. Now there is only one enterprise left in the village of Klavdievo (it recently partially moved to the village of Lubyanka), which operates at 25% of the "union" capacity. In the old days, about 600 people worked at the factory, now only a tenth of them remain. Almost all jewelry (about 96%) is now exported (Germany, Belgium, Holland, France, Great Britain, USA, etc.) and only 4% remain in Ukraine.
Let's see how the factory and the process of making Christmas decorations looks like. Outwardly (and inside) the factory gives the impression of abandonment. Indeed, after the collapse of the USSR, everything that was taken out of the factory was taken out in 5 years, and when a new owner finally appeared, it took more than one year to restore working capacity at least to a minimum level. One of the shops:
The first stage in the production of jewelry is the blowing of a ball or other jewelry from a glass tube approximately 1.5 m high. For various decorations, a glass tube of its own diameter and with its own wall thickness is used. Here is a pipe we are shown by the head of the board of the factory:
Mechanized blowing is not held in high regard by customers: when the ball is cast, a seam from the mold remains, so the entire production process is manual. To begin with, the tube is heated over a gas burner, the temperature of which reaches 1,500 degrees, and pulled into long thin tubes at intervals from an intact tube of the original diameter:
It turns out blanks for future decorations; where the tube was left of the original diameter, and balls will turn out:
Next, the untouched gap is heated and a ball or other decoration is blown out:

The subtlety of this work lies in the fact that the glassblower must draw exactly as much air into his lungs as is necessary to create a ball of the required diameter:
In this case, the ball must be constantly rotated around its axis, otherwise the uncooled glass will simply sag:

Despite the complexity of the process, glassblowers easily blow balls within a tolerance of 0.2 mm. When we were blown balls with a diameter of 80 mm:
However, after each balloon is blown, it is checked on a special template:
For a shift, the master can blow up to 200 balloons. And this is how the top for the Christmas tree, familiar to many, is born:
The second stage is silvering. It is carried out using such a simple installation: containers with reagents and a bath of hot water
Silver oxide, ammonia and distilled water are injected inside the jewelry in a certain proportion.

A Christmas toy with this mixture is placed in hot water, a reaction occurs and the silver evaporates, fixing on the inner walls. The decoration is shaken several times so that the silver evenly spreads over the walls. Then the remaining water is poured out:

The third stage is painting.
Silver-plated balls are wiped with a cloth and dipped in paint. At the same time, its consistency is very important: if the paint is too thick, streaks will remain on the ball, if it is too liquid, gaps:

The painted balls are sent to the oven where they dry under lamps. The rheostat regulates the voltage supplied to the lamps, and, accordingly, the temperature:
The fourth stage is decoration. If it is not required, the ball can bypass this stage and immediately go to the trim. When designing, the artist puts the necessary drawing on the toy:

Tiger drawing process:

To apply a pattern of sequins to the ball, it is first applied with glue, and then the ball is sprinkled with sparkles:
Finished tigers next to still unfinished brothers:
Artists can apply a drawing for every taste:
Each artist can paint from 50 to 100 balloons a day.
The fifth stage is cutting off the tip left over from the glassblowers. Made using a diamond wheel:

Fuck! The tip flies to the side:
It remains only to put on the familiar caps with a loop:
...and pack the toys:
Finally, a few examples of the New Year's variety that the factory produces:

By the way, when visiting the factory, you can immediately buy toys "at manufacturer's prices" and make an individual drawing.
Until such decorations

Agree, the most pleasant thing in preparing for the New Year is not a table at all and not even gifts.
The feeling of a holiday overtakes us exactly at the moment when we decorate the main symbol of New Year's Eve - the Christmas tree.

We take out a green beauty from the closet or buy a live spruce, put it at the head of the room, decorate it with sparkling balls, wrap it with tinsel or light a multi-colored garland. From this moment the countdown begins - there are just a few days left until the New Year.

While everyone is just getting ready to start the New Year's fuss, there is time to buy gifts and decide where and with whom to spend this very night. And it's still too early to get the tree. But we know how fast time flies, right?

Journey to winter Lower it would not be truly winter if not for an excursion to a fairy-tale country, which I am going to tell you about now.

I managed to see with my own eyes how they make one of the main components new year holiday- a Christmas tree toy, and even feel like a little artist.

I have already been to a similar production, only not a Christmas decoration, but ceramics, and I can well imagine how the birth of such works of art as vases, plates, jugs, cups, souvenir figurines, etc. takes place. For many years I studied at a school with an artistic bias (Gzhel) and even have a certificate (consider the second profession after a journalist) as a painter. Although that's what kind of artist I am. Once, I wrote about the production of Gzhel ceramics great article in a local magazine.

But I have never seen how glass is made, and even more so such a fragile thing as a Christmas tree toy! Everyone has heard of Gus-Khrustalny, Christmas decorations are made in Khimki, Klin, Pavlovsky Posad. The Nizhny Novgorod factory of Christmas decorations "Ariel" is one of such industries.

1. The factory meets with such romantic drawings on a concrete fence.

2. You can’t say that it’s a factory! The factory house is a museum, production begins where the "brick" is.

4. We went inside and everyone immediately took their breath away. Magic! Adults, like children, rushed to look at toys and take pictures in New Year's interiors.

5. Herringbone on chicken legs

Toy Museum. From the past to the present.

The Toy Museum is a real journey into childhood. Soviet plastic Christmas trees, metallic retro toys, paper decorations and cotton wool snow.

10. The exposition of the museum consists of more than a thousand exhibits that have been collected over 20 years. However, the craft itself originated in Nizhny Novgorod in 1936. The factory "Ariel" continues the traditions of the Gorky fishing and cooperative artel "Children's Toy".

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13. Toys on clothespins, everyone had them! I still have a lot of old balls and figurines in my bins - for the new year we no longer hang them on the Christmas tree, it's a pity to break them. At home, the cat is now only soulless plastic on a green beauty :(

14. Exactly the same houses! They tell the truth that in the USSR everything was the same for everyone.

15. While everyone was looking at the balls, I hurried to buy souvenirs. Toys here cost an average of 200-300 rubles apiece, there are even a thousand. It’s expensive for someone, personally I didn’t feel sorry for the money for such beauty.

16. A lot of rural motives. Russian village, folk tales.

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18. Winter and the same summer landscapes. Very soulful.

19. There is also a collection of such folk crafts as Gzhel.

The Nizhny Novgorod Christmas tree decoration factory is the only one in Russia whose products are exported. To Europe, America, Canada and many other countries. What and in what technique they do not draw! And European landscapes and the Russian village, planes (ordered by Sukhoi) and oil rigs (Lukoil), even Barack Obama painted! Putin just has not been portrayed yet, not politically correct, they say.

20. At the factory, you can order any thematic batch of toys. So many corporate and individual orders that glassblowers and artists work 12 hours a day!
State orders are also coming. This is a patriotic collection of the "city of Russia".

21. And this is an order from the Moscow metro. Do you recognize the stations?

22. Paveletskaya!

Glassblowers. This is where the toy takes shape.

23. It's time to tell how such beauty is born. First, a long glass tube is heated over a gas burner and divided into blanks. Then these parts continue to heat up on fire, after which, the master "inflates" the ball from one end of the tube.

24. Such "chupa-chups" are obtained. Ready lollipops

25. But first, the master carefully, under fire, removes one of the sticks.

26. And here you can see the shape in which pimply balls are made.

27. Like these

Workshop. Here they draw the New Year.

A toy is not a toy unless an artist paints it. It's time to look into the workshop, where future jewelry is painted with watercolors, acrylics and sparkles.

28. The factory occupies the building of the former bus depot. This, apparently, was once a classroom, do you see posters on the walls?

Today it is a workshop where painters work. Only women, men do not have enough perseverance and patience.
The only representative of the stronger sex at Ariel is Arkady Tersinsky, the director of the factory.

29. Bloggers quickly filled the room, trying to grab a good shot. Poor artists!

30. Each girl draws her story. Here is a Russian lady

31. And here is a matryoshka. I know firsthand how difficult it is to outline with a black outline ready product. If only the hand did not tremble!

32. Working environment. Brushes, paints, palettes, sponges and jars of water

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34. They draw with watercolors and acrylics, there are also special contour paints that create a relief on the product.

35. Kefir, even after death, also serves art

36. Religious motives. christmas night

37. Officers

38. In full dress and in sparkles!

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40. The gingerbread series at the factory has existed for more than a year. Really like! I bought two toys from this collection as a gift to my relatives.

41. Lambs get a fur coat

42. We remind you that next year is the year of the sheep / goat (meaning 2015). My year by the way

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44. Vases and candlesticks are also painted here.

Chief by drawing

That was a craft, but who is the master? Lead Artist! It is he who comes up with every story that will be depicted on the toy this year. Each order, each picture for "Ariel" is drawn by Natalia Repina.

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46. Creative mess and fresh work.

47. In the artist's office - examples of collections from different years. There, in the background - "the little prince", in the foreground - Russian and foreign landscapes.
On the first ball - Chkalov Stairs, Nizhny Novgorod.

48. Natalya admitted that her favorite subjects are the landscapes of the Russian village.

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51. The king is inspired by children's fairy tales. This is new for this season.

52. And this unusual flower collection stands out from the rest of the toys. A completely different technique is the imposition of several layers of paint.

Do you want to be an artist? Come on.

53. If you suddenly thought: "I could do it too, if I wanted to!" - it's easy to check. You can be an artist and paint yourself a souvenir as a keepsake. Acrylic paints, brushes and more!

54. Someone drew from pictures, someone grumbled that he couldn’t draw, some came out with real masterpieces. This was drawn by our tour guide.

The Village visited the Nizhny Novgorod factory of glass Christmas decorations "Ariel" and learned how elegant New Year figurines are born.

Photo

Ilya Bolshakov

It is hard to imagine, but from 1927 to 1935 in the Soviet Union neither New Year nor Christmas was celebrated - they were seen as an ideological threat. But then the tradition revived and began to develop with renewed vigor, albeit with a taste of propaganda. The Ariel factory, founded in 1996, is one of only two year-round production facilities in the country. She is also the assignee of the glass-blowing art workshop of the Gorky Artel "Children's Toy", opened in 1936. After the holiday was returned to the people, standards for the manufacture of toys began to appear, and teaching aids for teachers, how to properly decorate a Christmas tree with children, because each era had its own symbolism, designed to strengthen the spirit of citizens, faith in leaders, and further down the list. If we recall retrofigures, it is easy to guess during whose reign, for example, corn and onions were hung on Christmas trees. All forms were developed and approved centrally, and sent to production ready samples. Today, everything is dictated mainly by fashion, and the factories themselves decide what and how they will do.

Idea development

Creativity at this stage can refer to both the shape of the toy and the pattern on it. A specially created creative group of artists is developing several options for a new piece of jewelry, inspired by fashion trends, traditional symbols of the year, and retro motifs. Further, the chief artist approves those samples that will go into production. If this is a ball with a new pattern, then the approved version becomes the standard from which the masters will copy everything. If the figurine is new, then glass blowers are sent a ceramic mold for making.

Glass work

As a raw material, the factory buys glass darts - hollow tubes one and a half meters high. All you need to transform this dart into beautiful figures is gas-burner with a temperature of 650 degrees and the skill of a glass blower. The flame quickly heats up the tube, the glass becomes plastic, which allows you to separate a small piece from it for further work - “pull out the bullet”. You can make any toy out of it, but first you need to heat its main part again.

When the master understands that the glass has melted enough (and this can only be understood through experience and intuition, because it will not work to touch it with your hands or measure the temperature), he removes the bullet from the fire and begins to blow air into it through one of the “whiskers” - long ends of the workpiece. The air from the inside pushes the walls and, constantly turning the bullet in his hands, the glass blower blows out the ball, and then heats up the mustache, twists and tears it off. All handmade balls are not perfectly even, but it is almost impossible to notice this.

If it is necessary to make a figurine from the workpiece, for example, a snowman, it is also heated, but placed in a ceramic mold before blowing. Air is then also blown in through the mustache, but the glass expands exactly as long as the walls of the mold allow.

okolpachka

After blowing, the toys are sent to the paint shop, where they are given color: pink gloss, matte chocolate. For the remaining mustache, they are dipped into a barrel of varnish and placed on a stand until dry. Then this mustache is cut off and a cap is put on, the same one into which a thread is threaded to hang a toy on a Christmas tree. For some toys, these stages become final, they are packed and sent to customers.

painting

This is the longest and laborious process, because the artist literally draws a picture on every blank. But this is what makes the factory so remarkable, and toys - in demand. Over the years of work, it has developed its own, recognizable school of painting, detailed and realistic. And orders come not only from other regions, but also from Europe and the USA. For comparison, there are only four glassblowers in the state, and sixty artists.

On the table, each of them has a rack where toys are hung, acrylic paints, brushes and water, a palette, napkins and the sample itself. Since the painting takes place step by step, one master has several products at the same time, and it is difficult to calculate how many times a day each of them is picked up and hung back. First, underpainting is applied - the main color spots, then the details, from large to small. If you need to draw a house, then first the first wall is drawn on all the balls, followed by the second. This helps to save paint and time of the master.

Since the main audience is still children, four thematic workshops for independent painting were created for them: confectionery, sea, space and fantasy. Each child brings home from an excursion a toy decorated with his own pattern, although far from perfect, but no less valuable. Next to the workshops there is a museum with many works produced throughout the history of the existence of a glass Christmas tree toy, and photo zones, conditionally divided into eras and styles. Here you can see both a traditional retro Christmas tree with toys on clothespins, pioneers and corn, as well as very conceptual metal pyramid frames decorated with black glossy balls. But what is most surprising of all, this working atmosphere with a year-round holiday does not in the least discourage the factory workers from decorating Christmas trees at home. The only thing that has changed with their arrival here is that the approach to choosing jewelry has become more conscious and thoughtful.

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