Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Glass Painting


So, I'm de-stashing supplies in my studio & I came across a whole box of

I bought them over 10 years ago.  Yikes~!
I only experimented a little & I didn't have a lot of success.
Due to my production schedule I don't have a lot of time to experiment
with new processes so back to the shelf they were sent.

I've been working with float glass recently so I thought I'd pull the
GlassLine Paints back out & experiment a little as I had some room in the kiln.

~  Here's a few examples ~


The Flowers piece above was outlined in black paint & then fired. This is a traditional
glass technique called "tracing."  After the black tracing was fired I applied the colored
glass paint inside the lines.  One thing I learned is that the paint has to be thinned quite
a bit with water.  Thinning helps it to "pool" & "flow" into the space.
I'm working on the reverse side of the glass.



Here's another attempt at the reverse painting.
Tracing in black paint & then filling in with colors.
A little more success with shading & blending some of the paint which is hard
to do when you're working on the reverse side of the glass.


Here's another piece that was created by fusing glass together & then
applying the tracing & masks/matting.  Masking is thin layers
of enamels applied over the glass in layers, allowed to dry, & then
removed with sgraffito technique to reveal the colors below.

It's a long process with multiple firings in the kiln.  GlassLine looks
best to me when it's fired at a full fuse of 1500 degrees.  At this temperature
the float glass also has nice rounded edges & a shinny finish.