Glass Fish

One of my favorite glass items is fish. They are great fun to make because I can play with so many different combinations of colors.



Here is Sammy, a pendant made by Smokeylady54, using one of my glass fish in her creation. She has added her opwn lovely lampwork beads and leaves, as well as pearls and Swarovski crystals. The toggle on this piece is Sterling silver and the necklace is just under 22" long.



Sammy is for sale at Smokeylady's Etsy store . I also have some glass fish in my Etsy store too. Below are "Sid and Nancy", two punky fish waiting for a home.

Inspiration is all around

My two previous blogs about Sources of Inspiration looked at becoming "ideas-rich" and ways of presenting ideas for design (sketch books, design boards, scrap books etc).

Even the most mundane items can become a source of inspiration, you don't need to search the net for good design ideas, you are living with them. Here I have taken my camera to record a few ideas from around the home, focussing on color, texture and pattern. Textiles and tableware are both a great source for ideas and take a look in the fruit bowl too!

Any of these images will be useful to the glass artist, textile designer or graphic illustrator.

I am also addicted to glossy magazines and catalogues from shops such as The Pier which are packed full of color, texture and pattern. I keep a small note book with themed pages and, when I am stuck for inspiration, I take a few minutes to look through this book. Below are some example pages.

Colors of Provence, France

Natural color and texture

Black, cream and white

Why not browse Etsy and buy yourself a note book to keep your ideas? To view more pages from this notebook visit my Flickr.

A Walk to Bronte Falls

Last Bank Holiday Monday 5 May we took the dog for a walk to Bronte Falls. Here he is, keen to get moving.

We walked from Penistone Hill in Haworth to the Falls, a short walk of roughly 4 miles there and back, no strenuous climbing, just a gentle path. We could see across the valley to Stanbury and Oldfield. Below is Stanbury village.

The weather was hot and hazy, therefore the light quality was quite poor. This image is looking across the valley toward Lancashire, the Falls are below.

Once there we stopped to sit and paddle our feet in the beck. The original bridge was washed away in a flood so the Bronte Society paid to have a new one made. I don't know if the Falls had a name in the 19th century (someone enlighten me) but they are now named the Bronte Falls because the sisters lived at Haworth.

We intended to walk up to Top Withens, a ruin of a farmouse, said to be the inspiration for Wuthering Heights, but I had forgotten to bring a drink and, as my tongue was dragging on the ground from thirst, we walked back into Haworth and adjourned to the pub.

Here is Jackson, entertaining himself and anyone who was passing, by digging for stones in the beck.

Spaghetti Glass

More experiments with float glass products. This time I have been messing about with a tub of mixed glass "tangles".



After some disappointing results with bubble powder I have had success with the tangles. They are in assorted colors and are different thicknesses of hollowed glass, similar to stringers. These tangles are all 82 coe, making them compatible with float (picture) glass.



Noodles is a fused glass dish, now for sale on Etsy. I would, ideally, like a wider color range but I am quite pleased with the outcome.

You win some, You lose some...

In a previous post, Float Glass Products, I raved about the exciting new stuff I had bought that is COE82, making it compatible with float. Whilst the colors of float glass are disappointing (compared to the vibrancy of Bullseye glass) I had high hopes that these products would help me to make new, innovative glass designs at a fraction of the cost of COE90 glass. Here's what has happened so far...



Clear bubble powder: I was hoping for large, blistering bubbles such as the ones I get in my sushi dishes but the bubbles came out more like a rash. Unperturbed, I made another tile with lots more bubble powder (see below). If you look carefully you wlil see that the larger bubbles have stress fractures in them.



Below: clear bubble powder experiments with other bubble powders.
Curious! The one of the left is clear and turquoise bubble powder. The clear powder appears to have stripped the turquoise of any color, leaving it a dirty gray. The one on the right is clear bubble powder mixed with red bubble powder. It has also stripped the red color from the bubbles. I'm blaming the clear powder but, as I am still experimenting with this, I could be wrong.



Below: bubble powder stud earrings with clear and pink bubble powder. You can see a faint sheen of pink around the bubbles. They do look unusual in the fact that the bubbles look as if the glass is under water but, as I am an "in-yer-face" with color kind of gal, I will be working on this to make it more colorful.



Transparent frit: because colored float is slightly disappointing I was expecting the frit to be a bit wishy washy. Instead, I am quite pleased with the results.
From left to right: First one is frit mixed with clear bubble powder. again, it's turned a horrible grayish color, like burnt ash.
Second one is amber, orange and red frit between two pieces of float glass. It looks quite good close up because it has tiny air bubbles trapped inside.
Third and fourth ones are both frit placed between and on top of the glass. The image doesn't show it clearly but these pieces have a lot more depth and color to them.



Below: amber, orange and red frit earrings. The transparency makes them look almost liquid. I'm quite pleased with these and they are available for sale in my Dawanda shop.



Silver and gold glass sheet: this glass has a coating of gold or silver and it has lots of pre-made scratches that make a pattern on the glass. (It would be good to be able to buy it as a solid metallic color too). Here's what I did with it.



Below: various glass nuggets fused with gold and silver coated glass. The ones on the left have been fused with a cap of clear glass. The gold and silver coating has burned out and the glass cap has devitrified. Not good! The ones on the right have been fused with the gold ands silver coated glass on top of the clear glass. Although it looks much better I didn't get the shrinkage in the kiln that I was expecting so I have since cut the glass shapes to a smaller size.



Hearts of Glass. These glass hearts have been hand cut and fused by me, Glassprimitif. They are made from float glass (coe82) with a coating of gold or silver glass. Each one measures 1.5" (3cm) and are available for sale at Glassprimitif on Etsy.