Naomi's Glass Art Start

I promised pictures of my art a long time ago, and you have all been so patient. In fact, probably by this time you have forgotten and/or lost interest. Totally understandable.

So, without further ado, here is my fish tile that I made (well a close-up of the eyes and mouth, anyway):


I feel a bit like a little kid bringing my construction paper art project home to show my mommy by posting this, but I am very proud of this tile. It's a six inch by six inch piece of "soft" glass - the kind used in glass fusing - which is the glass techniques I have been learning as a way to introduce myself into this endless world of working with glass.

For those who may not know, glass fusing is often referred to as working with "warm glass," in that you are working the glass in solid form, cutting and fitting together, arranging and gluing, and then placing the project into a hot kiln and melting it all together. It's different from lampworking in that you are working with the glass in a solid state, whereas with lampworking you are forming and shaping molten glass.

So, I started with a clear tile, cut a yellow piece of glass into my best version of a fish-face shape, and then glued that onto the clear tile. Next, I took various colors of glass that were in the form of tiny shards, also known as "frit," and mixed those tiny shards of glass with special glass glue and a little bit of water, to form a paste-like glass "paint." One glass color in each paper cup. The main color was a red orange topped with a lighter orange. The spots on the fish are a light blue color, etcetera.

And then I proceeded to use paint brushes to paint the pattern I wanted onto the glass.

When I was all done with this - the painting took about five hours in one session, I believe - the whole thing was carefully placed into a firing kiln, where it was melted together.

I wish I would have taken a "before" photo so you could see how unlike a fish it looked, and how much of my imagination I had to use when I put this together.

My art instructor was so impressed by my fish that she called me up to tell me how good it was when she first took it out of the kiln. "I think we found your medium!" she said.

I think so too.



Circumstances revolving around my number one focus, our business (which is what pays the bills), has not allowed me to further explore this medium. Yet. But pretty soon I will be taking another class from my instructor and will be learning how to paint landscapes using glass. This is all very exciting to me, as I never before considered myself an artist, never took art classes in school (besides the required ones and a terrible time attempting ceramics my senior year in high school), and was never really encouraged by anyone to explore this side of myself. Until Mike.

Wish me luck, or better yet lots of time, energy and inspiration, which is most likely more useful than luck!

I do have other glass pieces I am excited to share with you, but photographing glass in a way that actually shows what it looks like is an acquired skill in itself. Photographing this fish tile took me at least half an hour last night, and it still isn't as good as the real thing. The point is I will get the pictures done as I am able.