New Project - Columbine Plate

One of the projects I started this weekend was the start of a 7" square plate, with a Columbine design. I took project progression pictures to show how I built this and hopefully the fusing, which is taking place tonight, will produce a good result.

I wanted to have three Columbines and this picture shows them when I was done with that portion of it.




This photo shows the start of the project, with a 7" square base of Bullseye French Vanilla. The mosaic tile clippers to the right of the base are what I used to cut the pieces of clear glass that go over the top of the flowers.



Next I added some purple confetti glass to form the basic shape of the flower petals. In this photo, you can see in the top center the photo of Columbines I was using as a reference.

I built on top of those with various sizes and colors of frit and confetti. The stems were pieces from the stringers I made several weeks ago. Everything was was glued in place so I could add the top layers of clear glass and not disturb the design.

In order to contain the clear glass chips I would place on top of the flowers, I built a clear glass box, gluing that on top of the vanilla base. This dried overnight so it would be secure enough for me to add the clear glass fill.






Once all of that was in place, I wrapped the exterior of the 'box' in fiber strips to keep the glass at its 1/2" depth. For extra safety, I used kiln posts to hold the fiber strips in place, shown in the last picture.






Tomorrow I'll see if my vision for this turns out as I hope.