I’ve been playing around with oil pastels and wondered if they could be fired in glass. I tested a small tile by drawing a design on fiber paper and then sandwiched it between two pieces of glass. I fired it, but didn’t give much thought to what might happen—the entire design burned out, the glass sealed the smokey looking paper blob, and a huge bubble was blown in the center!
I have a close artist friend who suggested that maybe her pottery under-glaze chalks might work, so I purchased a set and drew a nice image on fiber paper. I knew by now what to expect, so I sandwiched the paper between two sheets of glass and left a 1/4″ margin between the glass and paper, giving the glass some breathing room. I wedged a coarse piece of clear frit (ground glass) about 1/4″ inside each edge of the glass to allow the paper fumes to burn out and the glass to slowly seal. The outcome was nice; paper intact, crisp image, very few bubbles. My only disappointment was that it looked a little too pastel for what I was trying to achieve.
When I get stumped by a technique, I abandon the project and wait for it to “talk” to me, so this project was put on hold. Some of my friends thought it to be just right, but to me it screamed for more depth and deeper colors. I remembered a technique that utilizes glass powder wafers and decided to make elements that would add character and give a little more depth. The trees and rocks in the foreground are glass powder wafers and the tree branches are torch worked stringer. These elements were all tack fused to the existing two layers to create texture and dimension.
What do you think? I welcome feedback.
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