Underseascape II

My latest fused glass piece. The background and each foreground element were created in separate fusings, then contour-tack-fused to achieve 3D-relief.

Size: 8 x 10"

STEPS
Background

• First, I drew up the scene roughly and refined it.
• Next, I made templates for the pieces that would become the background, cutting them out of various shades of blue and aqua iridized and butterscotch and streaky french-vanilla/butterscotch glass.
• Then the pieces were assembled and the background was full-fused.

Foreground

• I made paper templates for each of the 3 foreground pieces.
• Each template was traced onto a piece of 1/8" fiber paper and then the outline was cut out, leaving fiber paper as the "mold" surrounding the cut-out area.
• Thin fiber paper larger than each of the templates was cut for each "mold" and set on a kiln-shelf in the kiln then topped with its corresponding "mold".
• The two "molds" for the coral pieces were filled with several similarly-colored chunks of transparent and opalescent glass and glass frit. Pieces of the proper shape were cut for the turtle's shell, legs and head and fit into that "mold".
• Then the foreground pieces were contour-tack fired.

The Completed Piece

• The turtle's shell design was painted with Thompson Enamel's orange metallic lustre mixed with their Klyr-Fire medium.
• The foreground pieces were arranged on the background until I was happy with their placement, then glued into place.
• A piece of thin fiber paper was cut that was 3/8" larger all around than the background piece and laid on a kiln shelf in the kiln.
• The assembled piece was laid on the fiber paper in the kiln and then contour-tack-fired.