Thursday, May 15, 2014

Fused Glass Seahorse

fused glass seahorse stained art ocean sea horse water copper metal inclusion Sharon Warren
Fused Glass Seahorse with Copper Fish Inclusions

I love how seahorses meander through giant oceans as they gently float on the currents.  To create a striped complicated shape like a seahorse from glass scrap should be no problem!

fused glass seahorse scrap glass project how use up stained sea horse water  Sharon Warren
Fused Glass Seahorse from Bullseye Scrap Glass Before Firing

I drew a basic outline in pencil directly on the Bullseye thinfire paper.  The pencil will burn off during firing and will not transfer to the glass.  Then, cut to width Bullseye glass strips in shades of white, cream and pink.  Please note that the glass strips need to be at least 1/4 inch tall when standing on edge, or the final piece may have holes in it.

fused glass seahorse scrap glass project how use up stained sea horse water  Sharon Warren
Fused Glass Seahorse from Bullseye Scrap Glass After Firing

The arranged glass strips were heated to 1500 degrees F for 15 minutes to completely fuse.  Here is my seahorse after firing.  He looks a bit lumpy and sort of pregnant, so I used my mosaic tile nippers and trimmed to the dashed lines.  Then I cold worked on the grinder to clean everything up. 

fused glass seahorse stained art ocean sea horse water copper metal inclusion construction flutterbybutterfly flutterbyfoto
Fused Glass Seahorse Creation

Now for the base glass.  I cut a sheet of Bullseye opaque white and a piece of transparent cool blue.  Tiny fish were hand cut from a roll of stained glass copper foil and placed on the white and then capped with the blue.  The full fused seahorse was then placed on top with an eye and some fins added.  The final art piece was taken to a tack fuse to keep the texture and then framed.  Voila.


fused glass seahorse stained art ocean sea horse water copper metal inclusion flutterbyfoto flutterbybutterfly
Contour Fuse of Seahorse for Lots of Texture