Fused Glass – Flash glass and Sandblast

In the first big fused glass boot camp I took with Tanya she taught us sandblasting.  The owl is still one of my favorite pieces that I made. She made us do it as homework and it took us all week, but I love it!! I keep it in my curio cabinet to keep it safe. She also had us sandblast in the second boot camp. We were suppose to put alcohol ink on it but I liked it the way it is so I never added the ink.

In addition to the sandblasted owl, Tanya also showed us how to create flash glass. Flash glass is a thin layer of glass onto of the base glass.  you can see in the dish below I have sandblasted butterflies into the flash glass. I liked it.  When I got home I made another one with the cranes. The possibilities are pretty fun.

I also made another one in another recent class at D&L.

The technique has a lot of potential, but you definitely have to have the right resist.  I made a lot of mistakes but I learned a lot. I tried to use my silhouette but I went through an entire role of vinyl and couldn’t get my designs printed.  So I did my designs the old fashion way, the way Tanya taught me with the owl with resist. Albeit I didn’t have thick resist and used contact paper. The first one went well. I love the sun and the design in the middle.  The butterflies is ok but I should have used a darker glass.

I didn’t use a strong enough resist and ruined my heart. I think I’ll try it again with the right resist. Now the one on the right, that’s black with white. Yep not one drop of white and I laid it on thick. But These are glass so I can refuse them with no problem. I’ll let you know what I decide to do with them.  At least one of them turned out, I really like the red and white one.  I definitely think I’ll be doing this one again.