If you're interested in purchasing the plates below, they're currently for sale at the Noyes Art Gallery in downtown Lincoln through the month of April. After that, perhaps I'll list them on Etsy. Contact me if you're interested.
Ready to fire in the kiln
No Days Liquid Fusing Adhesive can be used with frits to easily create complex designs. In this set of Mandala plates, I've added Glassline Pens to the mix to add extra layers and dimensionality.
Got a bunch of clear glass scrap & wish you could dress it up a bit?
Need a bunch of color, but can't afford all of them?
I love using Glassline paints to create patterned glass and this technique is one of the easiest ways to get a complicated look. Shake the bottles well and add water if you need to thin them out. Use a skewer if you need to stir. I always start my line in an extra bowl, to make sure that the consistency is right. This bowl becomes my bowl o' brown. All of those colors mix and dry in the bowl, then when I want a brown wash, I add water and brush it on the glass.
This week, we continued our exploration of fused glass by playing with paint on glass. While painting on glass is an extremely old technique that is traditionally used with stained glass windows, it's begun to edge it's way into fused glass as a way to incorporate images, patterns and designs into fired glass pieces.
We used Glassline Paints applied directly and with brushes, as design lines and as a wash. With the paints, you can use painting techniques like sgraffito, where you apply the paints and then scratch off a design, or if you're working on transparent glass, you can trace your design off of a pattern under the glass.
As you can see, the paints dry to look very washed out. However, when fired, the color comes back...
Depending upon how well the students like their outcomes, we'll incorporate these into tiles/coasters, or even cut them up to use as inclusions in our final project.
Much of my inspiration comes from quilts, textiles and fabrics. So, I tend to create larger patterned glass pieces to cut up into smaller design elements. Below, you can see the turquoise, orange and brown glass pieces have been painted with the Glassline paints...
Coming up next week, we'll continue our exploration of various forms of creating texture and design on glass with frit painting. For a quick preview of the materials we'll be using, here's a little demo video of frit painting designs on fused glass coasters:
The LUX Center for the Arts in Lincoln, Nebraska is beginning a kiln forming glass (or fused glass) program this fall beginning with a Fused Glass Sampler Platter Class, which touches upon glass terminology, basic glass cutting skills, techniques and materials used in glass fusing, programming kilns for firing, firing schedules, and more. The Sampler Platter class begins September 21st and will be held Tuesday nights from 6:30pm to 9:00pm until November 2nd (no class on October 19th). The class will explore different materials used in glass fusing including dichroic glass, glass paints, fusible paper, glass powders, frits, stringers, dichroic slide, as well as different techniques for adding texture and working with torches and candles to manipulate glass. The class will meet for 6 two-and-a-half hour sessions to create sample tiles of different materials and techniques. Then, for the final session, the successful tiles are incorporated to make an 8" x 8" platter to be fired and slumped. The Sampler Platter class is suitable for beginners to glass fusing, but also presents materials and techniques for the intermediate glass artist, as well. To register, call Natalie Nelson, Education Director for the LUX at 402.466.8692 or online at http://www.luxcenter.org.
Before... and After... Glassline Paints and glass powders helped me to compose the newest pieces for inclusion in my next project. 4"x4" coasters and 6"x6" plates.
I just pulled my lastest samples out of "Little Miss," my Paragon Caldera kiln.
I have some materials I've been wanting to play with since the Glass Craft and Bead Expo in Las Vegas last month. The first of which is the Streuter's No Days Mosaic Adhesive, which can be fired in the kiln and come off clean! I used a scrapbooking paper stamping tool to cut out the design from the No Days Adhesive and placed it on my glass. I pressed in it with my fingernails first, to see if it would hold powder without heating. Meh...not really; so I held the glass piece over a candle flame to start to liquify the adhesive. That was the trick! I sifted an orange powder over the adhesive and let it sit for a moment to allow the adhesive to absorb the powder fully and cool down, then I poured the rest of the powder off into a container to be used again. Next up...Glassline Paints on thinfire...I had a stroke of genius (well, that may be a bit much) while looking over the Glassline Paper product brochure. When I read "fusible paper," I thought of thinfire. Now, why I had never thought of it before I just cannot say. But, I decided to play around with it.
The very first sample I made was simply a piece of thinfire between two sheets of clear. I didn't post a picture of it here; it just looks like white paper in glass. Above is my second sample piece, on which I quickly scribbled out some random lines with the remains of the paints from my class (the first session of the "Sampler Platter Class"). Then turned it over and wrote my name, for the heck of it: And, instead of just firing it between two pieces of clear, I decided to test out my new dot templates for powdering glass. So, I sifted some orange dots on the top layer of clear. I'm excited about the new possibilities this could open up in later designs, but am not sure how I will be using it just yet. The Glassline paints on the paper look like puffy paints used straight from the bottle. The paint that I brushed on has the appearance of gouache, and I may have thinned it with a bit of water...but alas, I don't recall.
We used Glassline Paints applied directly and with brushes, as design lines and as a wash. With the paints, you can use painting techniques like sgraffito, where you apply the paints and then scratch off a design, or if you're working on transparent glass, you can trace your design off of a pattern under the glass.
Coming up next week, we'll continue our exploration of various forms of creating texture and design on glass with frit painting. For a quick preview of the materials we'll be using, here's a little demo video of frit painting designs on fused glass coasters:
and After...
Glassline Paints and glass powders helped me to compose the newest pieces for inclusion in my next project. 4"x4" coasters and 6"x6" plates.
The first week of my fused glass sampler platter class pieces are out of the kiln!
