Sunday, July 01, 2012

Fusing Glass Jewelry Components: New Experiments

I've been away from blogging for a bit. Working full time doesn't allow alot of spare time to be creative and then blog about it. I'd prefer to be creative than to blog!  I've got a few extra minutes today so I thought I'd catch you up on what I'm up to.

A sampling of my latest experiments

I'm playing around with fusing frit. I've created a few different custom made frit blends and used some Val Cox Frit.   If you use frit alot, you know that a little goes along way, it is intensely colored. So intense that it will look black if you don't "thin it out" with clear glass. That's one of the difficulties I'm having with fusing it.

Deep royal purple looks black in this fused donut








As you can see in the above picture, the royal purple looks black. It's difficult to "thin out" the bits of purple with clear, the bits still look black. I tried to "thin out" the color in the donut below:

By holding the donut up to sunlight, you can see the royal purple
I've come to the conclusion that  I need to stick to pastels or primarily light transparent when fusing.

Another accident happened when I was fusing the donuts. I got these "furry" or "sugar" pink hearts due to the spacing and the uneven heating it created in my kiln.

"Fur" or "Sugar" pink hearts


The hearts have brown spots because I left them at fusing temperature too long. I wanted them to melt smooth but it just wasn't going to happen with the way I'd set up the kiln.

They're kind of cool looking and there are no sharp edges so my dilemma is should I leave them this way or put them back in the kiln to fully fuse? What do you think?

Using these molds has been quite a learning experience. I'll share my thoughts on the molds in another blogpost. In the meantime, I'd like you to weigh in on what I should do with the sugar hearts - leave as is or full fuse to smooth finish?