Warm Heart: Fused Glass

One of my galleries, Backstreet Gallery, holds special exhibits every so often and this time we were asked to create something showing warmth for Valentine’s Day. I didn’t want just your typical heart and came upon a graphic showing hands holding a heart.  

Of course, I am always behind and this time was no exception. And when I am behind and in a hurry, I don’t always think things through.  I had carefully calculated how many days I would need in the kiln and made time three days before the deadline to get the first phase done.  What I didn’t take into consideration was a pending big storm which knocked out power. I knew it was coming! What was I thinking starting the kiln!

We lost power just as the kiln was ramping up and was approximately 1265 degrees F.  This meant no annealing on the way down to room temperature.  After we finally got power 2.5 days later, I decided to fire again hoping that going through an anneal cycle this time would be okay and the piece would not crack.

It cracked into 3 large pieces.  I could not say for sure though that the crack was caused by the loss of power.  My lay-up was a single sheet of 3mm white, on which I then placed the red heart and the black hands were overlapping the red heart.  So some areas were 3mm and some areas were 9 mm.  I took it slowly on the way up and then annealed it for 3 hours.  The crack definitely happened on the way down.  I have had difficulties before when the base layer was a single 3mm sheet.

Therefore take two involved first firing a base of 3mm white and 2mm clear.  Then I added the red heart and the overlapping black hands.  This time I went from 5mm to 11mm. This time I went even slower on the way up, and again annealed for 3 hours.  No crack this time! I like the sturdier base and my piece is finally at the Gallery albeit 2 weeks late.

Next time I will pay attention when I get a weather alert! Happy Fusing!

Read Full Post »

Painterly on Fused Glass

I would love to be a painter, but I think I had better stick with glass.  I never like my attempts at painting, but recently decided I may be improving as while I don’t like the end products, other do.  Here are two examples.

The first plate was for a challenge called “Spring Glorious Spring”.  For this challenge I decided to try my hand at Claude Monet’s Garden in Giverny.   From reading various tutorials, it seems like you are supposed to apply frit in batches firing in between to get a scene just right. 

I started with a fused base of green and white swirl 3mm glass and clear glass. I then applied powder in greens, yellows and browns to try to match the painting.  I then applied larger frit.  After learning about perspective, I made sure to apply the larger frits in the foreground and the smaller frits in the background.  I personally didn’t think my version looked anything like Monet’s (sorry, Monet), but others did and loved it. 

Fused Glass Plate based on Money’s Garden in Giverny

The Artist’s Garden in Giverny (1900) by Claude Monet. Original from the Yale University Art Gallery. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.

Recently I tried again.  I saw a painting that was based on Van Gogh’s Starry Night, and thought it would look great on a night light.  I used Colorline paints to paint on a 3mm sheet of glass.  I tried using a plastic tool to get the lines through the blues, but that didn’t work.  My next goal was to wait until the blues dried and use white to make the swirls and add some yellow blobs, but hmm, I forgot.  I added course clear frit to the top and did a contour fuse at about 1350 degrees F.  

Again, I didn’t think my nightlight looked anything like the original (sorry, Van Gogh).  But then I showed the nightlight to my husband and he immediately thought of Starry Nights, although his comment was, “Have you ever thought of doing them from paintings like Starry Nights?”  I had to share that that was what I had tried to do.  Oops.  But he said it was a success because it did make him think about Starry Nights.

Fused Glass Nightlight painted similar to Starry Night

Van Gogh’s Starry Night image from Wikimedia Commons

Moral of this story, I need to keep trying.  Some will work and some won’t.  Glad these two did!

Read Full Post »

Fused Glass Dinner Plates Made with Carnelian Crackle and Adventurine Blue

We are slowly getting some order back to our lives after moving.    As I sit here in the early morning gazing out the windows, enjoying the sun and colors shouting Springtime, my thoughts turn to glass and sharing some new insights with you.

While we still have boxes everywhere, I have one kiln set up in my workshop area and enjoy each day stepping away from the boxes and getting lost among the glass.

When choosing our kitchen cabinets, we added a plate rack and my husband winked and smiled as he asked for a set of dinner plates.  The first challenge was to pick colors.  We painted the steel beams in our house Fireball Orange which hints at burnt orange rather than a vibrant orange.  Shopping through Bullseye glass, the color that matched best was carnelian transparent.  But I also needed a complementary color.  My husband and I both love the adventurine colors and holding the adventurine blue up to the carnelian became a winning combination.

As many of you know from reading my other posts, I also love to make “crackle” glass, although I will add my disclaimer here again.  I have not been able to take the official class on the real crackle glass taught by its creator, Bob Leatherbarrow, and hence, I explored my own substitute but can honestly not say whether my way is the real way to make crackle.  I like what I have figured out and so am happy to share with you my method, but please do not construe that this is the real way to make crackle glass.

Okay, now back to my dinner plates.  I decided to go with round plates and marry a combination of solid and crackle carnelian and adventurine blue and make each plate a slightly different design.  To make my life easier, I made my crackle carnelian pieces into 10″ circles as well as cutting 10″ circles out of the other colors and then I could just cut the circles and combine the pieces but not have to worry about getting the circles round since they started off that way.

I put a second clear sheet of glass on top rather than the bottom as I wanted to keep the lines between the different glass colors crisp which is best done when those sheets are against the kiln shelf. 

The crackle part sheet is first fused on fiber cloth which imparts a somewhat rough surface to the glass, and by putting the clear on top, the bottom of the plate now has the bottom of the crackle part sheet and is not as smooth as I would like.  I accidentally came upon the solution when I needed to sandblast one of the plates to get rid of some guck and decided to sandblast both the top and bottom surfaces.  This was a winner as now the bottom of the plate feels great and I don’t have to worry about any scratches to the surfaces on which the plates will sit.  You can either sandblast your part sheet ahead of time or sandblast it after the plate has been fired the first time.  Either way works.

Shown here is a picture of two of the plates.

Fused Glass Dinner Plates

Read Full Post »

Life Can Be Busy, But It Can’t Stop Us from Dreaming

Can you bury your passions for a while?  I believe only on the outside as I sit here in the wee hours of the morning dreaming of glass projects I desperately want to create –  and lamenting that I don’t have any new fusing experiments about which to blog.

Life has been busy.  We embarked this last year on changes – moving to a new state and building a house, actually our dream house.  While I expected us to be busy as we built the house, I didn’t expect it to be all-consuming such that I would not even be able to find 30 minutes each day to sneak into the glass shop and create something small.  But alas, I am relegated to dreaming of new projects and jotting down my ideas down on paper so I can still remember them when I do have time.

On the positive side, in our new house, the glass shop will be front and center with a beautiful view to inspire my creativity!   And the shop is already wired for my eventual bigger and better kiln!

So wonderful readers, I ask you to please stand by for a little while and I promise some new and interesting glass fusing experiments and tips hopefully before the end of the year.

In the meantime as I watch the leaves begin to change colors, Happy Fall!

Autumn Fused Glass Bowl (available in my Etsy shop)

Read Full Post »

Firing Smaller Pieces in Glass Fusing

Glass fusers are taught from the very beginning to keep precise records of each firing recording the type of glass, the fusing schedule and notes on what happened.  Then, once you get to know your kiln well, you will learn which pieces require which schedules.  What I didn’t realize is that this learning never really stops.  I have been using a full fuse schedule of 1460 degrees F for most of my plates, bowls, coasters, night lights, jewelry, and so forth for the last several years.  Basically, if I wanted a 6mm piece at full fuse, I took my kiln to 1460 degrees F.

Recently I was on a roll with coasters and started to notice a difference in the resulting coasters.  The first set of coasters to catch my eye was a set of Bullseye special glass coasters which mixed opaque glass with transparent glass.  I noticed that even though I started with a perfect square, I ended up with not a perfect square – basically lopsided.  So I decided to do some more testing and made a single coaster with aqua blue transparent and another with aqua blue opaque taking them 1460 degrees F.  This time, the result was consistent in that the general shape was a consistent square, but I noticed that I was getting a little pull in on the sides especially with the transparent aqua blue glass.  Hmm.  Perhaps this had been happening for a while and I just hadn’t noticed.

Often, glass pulling in on the sides is a sign of firing too hot.  So the next set of coasters I decided to try fusing them at 1425 degrees F.  I had always thought that 1425 degrees F was more for an aggressive tack fuse and have used it successfully this way for large platters.  But with 4 inch coasters, 1425 degrees F was enough to fully fuse the coasters and instead of their pulling in on the sides, they remained perfectly square with nicely rounded corners. Hence, I am now using less heat for my smaller pieces with better success.

Fused Glass Coaster Experiments

Here is what I believe I have learned:

• Smaller objects require less heat to fully fuse.  While a large 6mm platter may need 1460 degrees F in my kiln for a full fuse, smaller coasters and other small objects can be fully fused at 1425 degrees F.
• Most transparent glass is softer and hence spreads the most and requires less heat to fuse.
• Black fused glass is the stiffest and requires hotter temperatures to melt and fuse with opaque glasses somewhere between transparent glasses and black glass.
• If you are using a streaky glass that includes both transparent and opaque colors, accept the fact that it won’t end up square at high temperatures and if it stresses you out, grind it square again and then just fire polish the edges.

Fused Glass Coasters Fired at 1425 degrees F (available in my Etsy Store)

NOTE: I learn much of what I know from reading other websites, classes and blogs and hence, I haven’t really invented anything new here.  But I am sharing what I found to work and not work.  If you have found other ways to do something similar to this, please share.  Thanks!

Read Full Post »