Preview ~ Sunset, Sky-Scape Series

Dan & I are fortunate, we live in a country setting, just outside of Colorado Springs. One of the many remarkable things about living where we do is the wide open space and expanse of sky. This photo is one of mine that I quickly took, just outside our back door, as the sun was setting. I wanted it as a reference for those stunning colors.

I have always been fascinated by the sky. The way the clouds form, drift, take on colors. The glow of a sunset. The somewhat eerie aspect of a summer storm forming. Where we live, we have very little blocking our view of the sky and the colors that nature produces are marvelous. This idea has been taking root in my mind for a while now and when I saw the beautiful colors in this sunset, I knew I needed to capture it in glass. Sometimes I can create a marvelous sky in a stained glass window thanks to the color variations in a sheet of glass. Bullseye, Uroboros, Fremont, Youghiogheny and others create some wonderful glass for depicting skies. But now, I wanted to capture the sky in my fused works. The great thing for me is that I knew I could do this and I wanted to take my glass work in a bit of a new direction.

I'm still working with glass strip construction, but now I'm trying to create abstract versions of those colors in the sky that I see almost every day. The possibilities are endless, I think.

Let me introduce the first in my new series. I call this one Sunset. The name of the series is Sky-Scapes. Sunset is not completely finished yet, but I thought I would be fun to give a preview of where it is, how it was constructed, and its inspiration.

The photo at the top of this post is the inspiration. While I have a great little digital camera, it's hard to do justice to the beauty of nature with it. However, I just wanted to make sure I had this image to refer to as needed.


These sheets of glass are the building blocks for Sunset. All Bullseye; it is my favorite. For this piece I decided to use a mix of opals and translucents. Others in this series are all translucent and some will be all opals....it just depends on the effect I want to achieve.


These are the strips I cut from the sheet glass. They are approximately 1/2" thick. I really like the thickness and the weight of the thick plates/bowls I do. They aren't for the feint of heart!


This is the start of the construction. I am improvising with things to hold the glass strips in place. I now have a new tool to help hold things in place and I'll preview that in another post.


It's ready for the kiln. You may notice that I'm changing up the randomness/mixture of glass and going for more of a jagged layer look, which I'm trying to create the effects I see in the sky.



This is how it looks after fusing. I really enjoy how some of the glass changes color a bit once it is fused.

Now Sunset is ready for the coldworking phase. After I complete that, I will slump it in the mold for it to take its final form. The next time you see Sunset, it will be one of Dan's photographs to showcase how it really looks and emphasize its beauty.

I hope you like the preview of this new series.

Until next time, aspire to be more as an artist and a person.