How to Make Layered Dichroic Jewelry - Part 1

Tonight, I'll be giving a quick demonstration of some of the upcoming classes I'll be teaching at Architectural Glass Arts (1 block South of 48th and Prescott) here in Lincoln, Nebraska. In particular, there's been a lot of interest in the Dichroic Tile for Jewelry class. It's a great way to make a bunch of gifts all in one go, because you start by making a 4" x 4" layered dichroic tile and end up with 10-20 pieces for jewelry (depending upon how large or small the pieces are that you decide to cut the tile into).
So, without further ado, here's part one (in the kiln prepping for part 2 as we speak)!


First, you'll need to gather your supplies:
You'll need your cutting tools (glass cutter, running pliers, mosaic nippers), a pair of tweezers come in handy for moving small pieces around, 5" x 5" piece of ThinFire paper (if you're not building directly on the kiln shelf like I did) on a sturdy piece of cardboard, your favorite brand of fusing glue (I'm using No Days Liquid Fusing Adhesive), cleaning supplies (I use Sparkle brand glass cleaner and microfiber cloths), and of course, glass.
You'll need a variety of dichroic bits on black and clear. You can actually purchase sample kits or assortment bags from several dichroic suppliers, and I've found this to be the best way to build up a variety of different dichroics at a good price.
Lastly, you'll need either: 4" x 4" piece of thin black (or whatever color you want to be the base layer) AND 4" x 4" piece of thin clear, OR a 4" x 4" piece of clear. If you're using thins, just follow the steps below verbatim. Otherwise, you'll need to start by laying out your ThinFire on cardboard and drawing a 4" x 4" square on the paper with a pen or pencil. This square is where you'll start layering your pieces.

Now, it's time to assemble the layers:

Begin by placing your thin black on the kiln shelf. (Alternately, you may use ThinFire paper setting atop of a sturdy piece of cardboard. After the glue has dried, it is easy to scoot the paper off of the cardboard and into the kiln. DO NOT FIRE THE CARDBOARD!!!

[Note: If using standard thickness (1/8") glass, then you should not have a base layer. Instead, mark your kiln shelf with a 4" x 4" square (lightly use a pencil to mark the primed shelf), or draw a 4" x 4" square on a piece of ThinFire paper on sturdy cardboard. You will not use a base layer of glass. Your base layer will be your dichroic on black pieces.]

Now it's time to play with dichro!!! First, you'll be laying down bits of opaque dichroic glass. (Dichroic glass comes on black thin glass or on clear thin glass.) Cut the dichroic pieces into random shapes, squares, triangles, strips...whatever you feel! Trust me, as long as you load the dichro up, you'll be pleased with how this turns out.
I included a wavy stick of dichro and some flameworked twisty stringers. The only thing I would not recommend is to use plain old glass. I've tried it once and it overpowered the dichro. It's a mistake I will not try again!
You can see bits of my base glass that are naked. They will likely show up in the final piece, depending upon how well I cover those bits with clear dichroic in the next step.


If you haven't used a base layer of glass, then you need to use more dichroic than I did. You should not be able to see the kiln shelf or ThinFire.
At this point, I also dropped a bit of glue in the seams, especially along the edges of the glass. Even though the glass is placed fairly randomly, it takes some time to do. I don't want my nicely stacked piece to shift around before I get it in the kiln!

Now, you start layering clear dichroic on top of your opaque dichroic. A word of warning! The metal oxides that make that beautiful dichroic coating do not stick to each other when fired. What does this mean? It means that when placing the transparent dichroic glass on top of your opaque dichroic, you need to carefully examine each piece to make sure the dichroic coating is up and not down. I do this by holding my piece of glass to a light and trying to catch the reflection of the light on the dichro coating. If your dichro coating is face up, the light it reflects will run all the way to the edge of the glass. If your dichro coating is down, you will see a slight "shadow," kind of like when you stand really close to the bathroom mirror and look at the edge. (Anyone besides me ever done this?)
Make sure you have plenty of transparent dichroic on top of your base layer, but it's okay with this layer to go a little lighter than you did with the opaque layer. AND, some transparent dichroics will completely obscure the layer underneath them. So, don't get too crazy! (Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy?)


As I laid each piece of transparent dichro down, I put a tiny bit of adhesive on the bottom side. Like I said earlier, I use No Days Liquid Fusing Adhesive. It's got a pleasant orange aroma that helps to cover up the garage smell in my studio. It's also really tacky, so when it dries, my pieces are more stable than if I were to use different fusing glues. (Did I tell you how long it takes to put this piece together? Just long enough to make it really frustrating when pieces move before they are in the kiln!)
Tada!!! Made it to the kiln, and now all that's left is to cap it! Dichro is nice and sparkly, but when you put the clear layer of glass on top, it adds a really nice dimensionality to the metal coating. This is where I gently add the 4" x 4" piece of thin, clear glass on top before firing up the kiln. [NOTE: If using standard thickness glass, you didn't have a base layer. However, you definitely want a clear cap. So, this is where you would add a 4" x 4" piece of clear to your lovely stack.

Load the kiln and fire!
The firing schedule will vary from kiln to kiln. But, for my small Paragon Caldera kiln, this is the schedule I used:

500 degrees per hour to 600 degrees and hold for 15 minutes

(I didn't let my glue thoroughly set and dry. The No Days adhesive starts to set within 3 minutes, but can take much longer to dry - even overnight. This step helps to dry and burn off moisture, so make sure the kiln is vented. I simply place 2 stacked squares of 1/8" thick fiber paper in two corners of my kiln and leave it vented the whole time.)

500 - 1000 - 5

The binders in the ThinFire and the glue will burn off completely during this stage. The kiln still needs to be vented...

full - 1250 - 10

This stage heats up to slump temperatures and let the layers fall together, squeezing out air bubbles and beginning to tack.

full- 1480 - 15

All the layers should now fuse together fully.

full - 900 - 20

Annealing temperature. My bitty kiln holds its heat well, and with small pieces like this one, it doesn't need any further annealing.

0000

The end.

Make sure you DO NOT open the kiln even to peek once the kiln is below 1000 degrees! You're just asking for trouble if you do. Don't want to put all that work into making this nice piece and then stress out your glass and make it shatter!!!
No, No, No!

Part Two will cover cutting the tile into smaller pieces, rounding off the sharp edges and attaching a bail.

Fused Glass Sampler Platter Class

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.

What is Dichroic Glass?

dichrotic...dichronic...dichro...dichroic glass...

People are fascinated by sparkly, and if it's glass, then dichroic is your mega sparkle!

But, there's a lot of confusion about what dichroic glass is...

Some pins I have created with dichroic accents.

My first encounter with dichro was on Telegraph Ave in Berkeley. Small town girl from Nebraska visiting the craziness of Berkeley in the mid-90s. There was so much to see, but I was transfixed when my eyes caught the reflections off of some glittering dichroic rings. I carefully chose two, a green and orange combo and a blue and pink combo. When I asked what is was, I was given two answers..."It depends on what you want to believe. It's either the fire from a dragon's eye, or the metallic coating they use on spaceships."
Those rings are no longer with me. (Did I tell you that people are fascinated with sparkly?) During a summer at one of my most eclectic friends house, a dance troupe from Benin, West Africa visited. While discussing food, music, and then jewelry (in snippets of the French I learned in high school) with the two women dancers that had made the trek to Middle America, we decided to trade baubles. I gave them each one of the rings that sparkled; they had never seen anything like it before. I, in turn, received beads from Africa that I've incorporated into several of my jewelry designs.

But, back to dichro... What is it exactly?Cabinet hardware with dichroic accents.

SAVOY dichroic has a nice little blurb about it...

Dichroic is a high-tech optical coating that selectively reflects certain wavelengths (colors) of light and allows the remaining wavelengths to transmit through. This same effect is seen in nature in peacock feathers and opals. The word "dichroic" means two colors, which refers to transmitted color and reflected color. The coating process is done in a high vacuum chamber that has several pieces of specialized equipment to control and monitor the coating process.

Coatings by Sandberg elaborates a bit more about the process...

Dichroic Glass is a multi layer coating placed on glass by using a highly technical vacuum deposition process. Quartz Crystal and Metal Oxides are Vaporized with an electron beam gun in an airless vacuum chamber and the vapor then floats upward and attaches then condenses on the surface of the glass in the form of a crystal structure. Our colors have as many as 30 layers of these materials yet the thickness of the total coating is approximately 35 millionths of an inch. The coating that is created is very similar to a gemstone and by careful control in thickness, different colors are obtained. Thus, all our coatings are created using the same exact materials. Originally created for the Aerospace industry, Dichroic Glass is now made available to the artist community through Coatings By Sandberg, Inc. CBS Dichroic Glass is specifically designed to be hotworked in any way but can also be used in its raw form. The main characteristic of Dichroic Glass is that it has a transmitted color and a completely different reflective color. Furthermore, these two colors shift depending on angle of view. With the play of light together with its vibrant color, Dichroic Glass is a prime tool used to add interest to any piece of work or project.

I also discovered here that the "spaceship theory" from Telegraph Ave. was a bit closer to the truth. CBS talks about the more technical uses of dichroic, "Dichroic Glass was originally created for the Aerospace industry for Satellite mirrors, but it now has many technical uses including: Lighting, Fiber Optics, Infrared Lazers, Motion Picture Equipment, Sun Glasses, and more."

Any glass artist who has tried to photograph their pieces, especially dichroic pieces, knows that it is incredibly difficult to catch the nuances and beauty of dichroic glass. But, CBS has some beautiful close up shots of dichroic glass on their home page.


Disclaimer....I get NO compensation for linking to any outside sites. Though, wouldn't that be nice?!?

Bending stringers and cutting dichroic...

Tonight, we started the class period by creating a dichroic element for addition into our finished plate. I didn't snap a before picture, but it really won't make much difference as with the low firing temperature (1425 degrees F for 5 minutes) I was really just aiming for a tack fuse; something to hold the pieces in place. But, the kiln is still at around 350 degrees F, and it shouldn't really be opened to prevent the glass inside from stressing and potentially cracking. However, since the pieces that were fired are thin and small, and will be fired again into the final project; I opened the lid quickly to get a quick snapshot (which was very dark and I had to overexpose using a little digital photo editing so that you can see any detail at all).
After my student programmed the kiln (with a little guidance), we began working with stringers and candles to create more decorative elements for next week when we cut the pieces apart and put them back together.
Here are some retro-y looking square swirls that I created by holding the stringer over a candle flame and manipulating with tweezers. You simply hold the 1mm stringer over the flame (at the very tip of the flame) until it starts to bend with a little pressure. If it starts to move in a direction you weren't expecting, simply pull back out of the flame to cool before heading back in to reshape.

Playing in the flames made me want to get back in the hot shop. It's not exactly the same as working with a glory hole, but the concepts are similar...just a bit.

To finish up the session, we broke out the Glassline paints and paintbrushes to decorate some Thinfire. (This, too, will be an element for our finished plate.) At this point, my 2 year old niece decided that she wanted part of the action, as well. While sitting watching mommy paint with the green paints, she chimed in, "Me paint;" and even though I kept telling her we'd paint the next time she came over, she pressed on. "Me hold paper." Mmm, okay..."Me paint." Oh, okay...so, she did:) A little pink, some red, a bit of orange, and a lot of water. She's on her way to becoming the world's youngest glass artist, perhaps?
Alongside, mommy and my niece's pieces is a sample that I created to test my theory of Thinfire being paint-able and fire-able. It worked, so I added some powdered polka dots to up it's interest level.
I also assigned some homework. In order to incorporate all of the techniques we've been experimenting with into one plate and make it look spectacular, we are going to cut up our sample tiles; maybe not all of them, but definitely some of them. I warned my students from the get go. "Do not get attached to the individual tiles." It is hard. I speak from experience. In fact, just this week I was finally able to cut up a particular painted piece that I made over a year ago for inclusion in another piece. It was a beautiful pattern, but it was also not a stand alone piece. I'll unveil pictures soon;)
I digress...do not get attached. This is actually a good mantra for glass art in general, as you never "really" know what's going to happen in the kiln. Sure, MOST of the time everything turns out as you expected (once you know what to expect). However, there's always the chance that something will shift, an element goes out, a program went wrong, a bubble formed...It's a great practice in letting go. So, to further this practice, we'll be looking at our sample tiles through "viewfinders" (squares cut out of a white cardstock). We'll move the windows over our tiles to see what particular areas will look like when we cut them. Hopefully, this will aid in the letting go of the tile process, to break the pieces down into smaller parts in order to create a new composition. I'm really excited for next week, when we'll start to cut the tiles apart and then piece them back together.
One last little "food for thought." Next week, we will potentially be incorporating dichro slide into our compositions. It's a very subtle look and adds a nice, shimmery appearance. Above, I fired small sample stripes between two layers of stained glass (from the same sheet). It seemingly does not need to be capped, but I haven't poked at it with anything aside from my fingernail.
Salut!

Silver Art Clay and Dichroic Pendants

This weekend, I was finally able to take the fabled Silver Art Clay Pendants Clay with Arlene Hildebrand Mornick. She is a wonderful instructor; very knowledgeable, extremely patient and helpful in every way!
I have had all of the pieces from my Dichroic Tile for months, just waiting to learn the fine art of silver clay.
We learned several methods of framing/holding the glass cabochon.
Art Clay Silver is made up of reclaimed silver particles (from items such as circuit boards and photographic negatives) , organic binders and water. After firing, or sintering (bonding metal particles), the leftover piece is 99.9% pure silver.
For our first piece, we used small chips of dichroic glass incorporated into silver clay pieces. We were able to fire these pieces and take them home at the end of the day. I wore the flower piece with a dichroic glass chip to work later that evening!
For the larger pieces of glass that we incorporated into the clay, a longer annealing schedule is required. So, we weren't able to pick these up until the next day.
After firing, the silver has a white coating on it that needs to be removed in order for the silver to really shine through. We used wire brushes to polish the silver before tumbling the pendants in a rock tumbler. The longer the pieces are tumbled, the more they shine.
I think I still want to use Liver of Sulfur on the pieces to add a little depth and make the texture of the silver more noticeable.

Di Rosa Preserve Open to Public!

The Di Rosa Preserve "encompasses 53 acres, including a 35-acre lake, plus 162 acres of natural wildlife preserve, all under Napa County Land Trust open space protection. Holdings include Milliken Peak and a stunning variety of habitats such as oak woodland, native grasses, ferns, herbs and wildflowers."

More than that, though, the Preserve is the legacy of Rene di Rosa and a treasure of art and architecture. According to one of the volunteers, there are more than 900 artists with 2000 pieces on display.

Normally, to see the entire grounds, you need to schedule a tour and are guided through the large museum of pieces that Mr. di Rosa has collected throughout his lifetime. But, Sunday was a different story. There were throngs of people wandering about, taking in the more than 2000 pieces of art adorning the walls and ceilings of the former di Rosa residence, hanging on the walls of the two galleries, and spotting the prairie garden. There was even a cow that walked on water!

My favorite of the glass art pieces was the glass chapel. It was beautifully leaded with poppies and irises. Aside from the glass being beautiful, the architecture of the house itself was amazing. Here's a detailed view of one of the apexes:

Another glass piece in the sculpture pasture was this glass pyramid that combined sandblasted glass and dichroic glass pieces to surround a rock that rested within a circle of broken glass bits. There were several petroglyph-like symbols left in the negative space surrounded by the sandblasted glass. The dichroic glass was attached with glue (UV glue is my guess) in areas of the base glass that were not sandblasted, creating windows for the sun to shine through and cast pinks, blues, greens, and yellows onto the rock below.
To the left is a picture of part of the pasture with a view of the hilly vineyards surrounding it. (The winery at the top of the hill is Artesa.)


And, of course, if you're going to have a sculpture garden in the wine country, you must have a house made of bottles!

I ventured inside, warily, to check out the granite slabs that were etched with a verse,

something to the effect of, "I remember the place of my birth."
But, unfortunately I didn't write it down, and so cannot remember it...
Ah! My mind, the steel trap.

Not glass, but provoking and somewhat eerie - though I suppose it would be close to frightening if viewed under a full moon - were the ghostly hands coming up out of the ground in the middle of a patch of California poppies.

There was so much art to see that the mere two hours we were able afford was a pittance. I had to rush off to work, so my visit was cut short, although the Preserve was closing down at that time anyway. This is definitely a day trip we will return to with visitors to the valley. Another one of the wonderful things to do in Napa when you get tired of wine tasting.