Landscapes are something that I enjoy – the beauty and incredible details of God’s creation! While I have made a few quilted landscapes, I had not yet tried to make a landscape out of fused glass.

A few months ago, I was cleaning and rearranging the supplies in the room where I do my fused glass work. When I moved a large organizer box, I discovered a picture taped to the wall that had been there for a really long time. This picture was drawn by one of my sons when he was about eight years old and was my inspiration for an attempt at a fused glass landscape.

For the background glass, I used some Heads & Tails glass, a type of glass that I recently discovered at a local glass supply store. H&T glass is the rough uneven sides of the sheets of glass cut off during the manufacture into sheets.

For some of the details, I used opaque frit powder and fine glass. This glass was shaped into clouds, grass, trees, etc and then tack fused.

These glass elements were then combined to replicate the inspiration drawing. Glass frit and stringer were used to create the trees and the entire piece was full fused.

I was pleased with the result.

After trimming the edges, additional frit was added to create detail for the trees, rocks and flowers.

I especially like how the landscape looks back-lite.

For my first attempt at a glass landscape, I am pleased with the result. I learned a lot while doing this and may try to replicate some pictures taken during vacations.

Recently, I have been “playing” in my glass studio each morning trying out some new ideas. By doing this in the mornings, it allows me to set up something in the kiln to fire during the day. The next morning, I get to see the results of my previous day’s efforts. It gives me something nice to see (as well as a few surprises) when I open the kiln.

Lately, I’ve been playing around with how the placement of the glass can create optical changes after being fired.

Stenciling with Frit Glass.

For this project, I placed a couple 6″ stencils on kiln shelf paper and sifted some fine glass frit over the stencils. I then carefully removed the stencil and fired the glass using a Tack Fuse Schedule (max temp 1325 degrees, no hold time). This schedule resulted in the glass lightly fusing together without dramatically changing the size. I selected fine frit for two reasons (1) I have lots of it that I don’t use in other projects and thought this would be a good way to use it, and (2) I wanted the image to be more abstract and thought that powdered frit would be too exact for what I wanted to accomplish. This two thin wafers of frit were aligned, sandwiched between a piece of opaque white and a piece of clear glass, full fused and slumped into a shallow dish mold. The result was lovely. By placing the transparent orange wafer on top of the opaque red glass wafer, I achieved a color gradient that would have been difficult to achieve. I really like the look of the bubbles that were trapped around the frit as it melted into the sheets of glass.

Glass Displacement.

For this project, I wanted to see what would happen if I stacked various sized squares of opaque and transparent glass and full fused. Since glass naturally wants to achieve a 6mm thickness (1/4inch), the glass in the stacks should cause the lower glass to shift outward as the top glass settles down to the natural height. I used a 6″ piece of opaque white glass as the base. On top of this, I placed stacks with 3/4″ transparent (in various colors), 5/8″ opaque white and 3/8″ transparent. The area of the three pieces of glass in each stack was 0.56″, 0.39″ and 0.14″, which added up to 1.09″. By placing the stacks in a six by six grid, the glass should settle evenly on the base glass. However, to keep the edges straight, I did use a 6″ stainless steel form. After full fusing (max temp 1475 degrees, 30 minute hold), the edges were smoothed on my flat grinder and the glass was slumped into a shallow dish mold. The result gives the illusion of depth to the piece.

Frit Displacement.

For this project, I wanted to see if glass displacement would be visible using frit sifted over stacked glass. The thinking behind this idea was that the glass powder would settle onto the horizontal surfaces, but would not stick to the vertical surfaces. Then, as the glass melted and spread, the untreated vertical glass would displace some of the adjacent horizontal glass. My initial test of this idea worked well (sorry, I forgot to take pictures). I applied the idea to make another small dish. For the base layers, I used a 6″ piece of clear glass was placed on to of a 6″ piece of red frit and stringer glass. On top of this, clear glass pieces, 0.75″ were placed in a 5 x 5 grid. Over this, I sifted transparent blue powder. And, to add some variety, I placed a couple 0.375″ red transparent square.

Another Frit Displacement.

Could this technique be used to create slight shadowing around cut pieces of glass? To test out this idea, I created a design that matched a quilt block I had recently made. Powdered glass in a bronze color was sifted over this design and accent glass added. For the bottom of the base layer, I also created a design using glass with different white textures. This turned out lovely, but I think the frit displacement technique works best when the color of frit is more intense.

When purchasing supplies for my crafts, I try to support my local stores. However, that is not always possible. When I first started fusing, one of the on-line sites I purchased from was Delphi Glass in Lansing, MI. This company has numerous free patterns and project ideas on their website.

One of the projects that I tried a few years ago is the “Woven Stripes” square plate (Delphi Project Guide found here). To make the plate, I purchased some Vienna Stripe glass. The glass is a semi opaque white with lines of color on the surface.

This project was made with a clear base layer and squares of the striped glass placed in an alternating “woven” pattern. Over every other striped square (those going in only one direction) a square of clear glass was placed.

Fusing glass is normally sold in sheets that are 3mm thick. Thus, the design involved some areas with two layers of glass (making these areas 6 mm thick), and some areas of three layers of glass (9mm thick).

However, glass has a natural tendency to want to be 6mm thick. When fired at a full fuse temperature, the areas of clear glass spread outward to create the 6 mm thickness. This project created a bit of an optical illusion. In the areas where the clear glass spread, the lines appear slightly curved.

Recently, I tried another variation of this optical illusion. I though that if one piece of glass caused the stripes to curve, then maybe two pieces of glass would create a greater curve effect. Because I was stacking more glass, I opted not to use a clear base layer, to avoid the project spreading out too much. Rather, I used the my excess Vienna Stripe glass as a single base layer. To accentuate the extent of curve, I kept the strip going only one direction. Over the striped glass, I stacked two pieces of clear glass in an alternating fashion, leaving an uncovered area of the base glass between each double stack of clear glass.

The optical illusion I was hoping for worked our really well. Unfortunately, the base layer was not a solid piece of Vienna Stripe, but rather four pieces placed side by side. At the full fuse temperature, the glass naturally tried to settle to 6mm in thickness. This caused contraction in the areas of a single layer of glass and a couple of holes to open up.

I will admit that I was a bit disappointed with these holes because I had originally planned to slump the project into a square plate mold. I pondered some ideas for how to cover the holes, but was not really happy with any of my ideas. When I showed the project to my husband, he suggested that I run some ribbon through the holes as a way to make the project a piece of wall art. I like that idea. And, since the top holes were very symmetrical, it worked well. For the hole at the bottom of the project, I cut some flower petals out of the last bits of Vienna Strip, contour fused them together and hung the flower from the bottom. I think this would make a lovely piece of wall art. If anyone is interested in the piece, please contact me and I will make arrangements for it to be sent to you.

I really like how this optical illusion project turned out and decided to try another idea – a round approach to the same illusion. Unfortunately, Vienna glass is no longer sold, so I needed a different source for my stripes. To do this, I placed stringer pieces around the perimeter of a circle of clear glass in an alternating pattern of two color sets each with eight sections. Two pieces of clear glass was stacked over one set of colors around the perimeter. And, two pieces were stacked over the other color sections but at a position more towards the center of the circle.

I really like how this project turned out! It resulted in an octagon shape that I then slumped into a shallow plate form.

I have some more optical illusion ideas that I will be trying in the future.

Having an undergraduate degree in chemistry, and having spent numerous years involved in research (as an undergraduate student, graduate student and on the UM faculty), I do have a tendency to look at what is actually happening when I am doing various crafts that involve chemicals.

This was the case when I was learning how to dye fabrics and yarns, when making yogurt, and in my cooking and baking.

So, when I saw some fun ideas for creating bubbles in fused glass, I decided to learn a bit more about the idea.

Calcium carbonate is a chemical compound with the formula CaCO₃ and a very pale green color. Upon heating, it releases carbon dioxide, a thermal decomposition reaction, to form calcium oxide. CaCO₃(s) → CaO(s) + CO₂(g)

The temperature at which decomposition occurs is higher than the slumping temperature of glass. So, when calcium carbonate powder is placed between two pieces of glass, the glass slumps and seal the powder in the space between the glass. As the temperature is raised, the decomposition happens and carbon dioxide gas is generated, creating bubbles. But, because the glass is sealed together, these bubbles are trapped between the pieces of glass. And, the resulting calcium oxide is a lovely turquoise color.

I set up to test this idea in my kiln. But, I decided to test some additional powders as well. Cobalt carbonate, copper carbonate, nickel carbonate, sodium bicarbonate and Borax were sifted onto 1″ x 1.25″ pieces of glass, capped with a second piece of glass and fired in the kiln at a full fuse schedule.

All of these powders created bubbles. The carbonates worked really well, giving some lovely blue, turquoise and grey bubbles. Unfortunately the sodium bicarbonate created a really large bubble and will not be very useful for some creative glass ideas. The Borax produced very small bubbles, more experimenting is needed to optimize the use of Borax.

This lead me to some really fun ideas. I think the cobalt carbonate would be nice to use for an underwater scene. I am hoping to give that I try sometime this year.

The copper made me think of winter. And, since I needed a napkin holder for the winter months, I had an idea.

Using some scrap electrical wire, I cut a couple small pieces and spread the individual wires out to look like the trunk and branches of a tree. Copper is a heat stable metal that I have used in other projects. These copper pieces were placed on a piece of clear glass. Then, using a cardstock stencil, I sifted some calcium carbonate over the trees to create the image of the tree. After capping with a piece of clear glass, white opaque frit was sprinkled to create some “snow”.

After fusing, the trees were great, but I decided to tack fuse some more white frit to make more snow.

I was really happy with the resulting glass. After slumping over a mold, the napkin holder (seen above) was ready for use in my kitchen.

I am looking forward to some more “chemistry experiments” with my kiln.