How It All Began....

I thought I would start a blog to talk about my designs and how I got started.

When I lived in Bristol, I decided to take some craft courses.  I wasn't sure just what I wanted to do until I saw some dichroic glass jewelry in the Bristol City Museum gift shop.  I thought the pieces were very interesting and was curious as to how they were made.  I did a Google search and found some info about the glass and about fusing in general.  I then did another search for courses in the Bristol area and I found a weekend course at the Creative Glass Guild in Bedminster.  I phoned them and booked my spot.

The first day started with introductions and then a bit of health and safety.  After the H&S bit, they started by teaching us how to cut glass.  Each member of our class was given a glass cutter and a sort of t-square which we used to keep our cuts straight.  After we had tried a few times, we had gotten the basics of the cutting under our belts.  As this was a course in fusing, we were then given a few pieces of glass to cut into the sizes given to us.  We then were instructed to select colours of glass and then begin building our colours.  James, our instructor, was telling us how to layer different colours of glass to  experiment with the way the colours are reflected and blended after firing in the kiln.  We made a few tiles and a bowl with this process.  We also used thick kiln paper which is like a soft tile that can be carved.  We carved designs into the kiln paper and then placed a square of float glass over it.  This was then placed in the kiln where it was heated and as it did this it melted the glass onto the kiln paper tile.  I believe that this could be used to carve individual spaces for making earrings and pendants although I have not tried it.  We were also taught about different types of glass.  Frit is ground glass in different sizes from a very coarse stone like grit to a powder frit which is extremely fine.  There are also pieces called stringers which look like uncooked spaguetti and also confetti which is very thin flat pieces of glass.  These kinds of glass come in a multitude of colours.  I found the class to be very inspirational.  James is a great guy who is always available to answer any questions.  Before the end of the second day, they even gave me a quick soldering lesson.  They also have courses in stained glass as well as a very well equipped shop and online ordering is also available.  If you think you might like to have a go at glass fusing, stained glass, I recommend a visit to their website.  GJD

https://www.creativeglassguild.co.uk/index.htm

04 February 2011