CUSTOM COLORS IN GLASS FRIT
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WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT YOU HAVE OVER 900 COLORS?
update, 12/2013....make that 1200 colors. update 5/2018.....make that 2000 blends
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| An early on small view of the beginning of the collection |
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Shortly after taking classes in basic glass work i realized that my personal vision of fine art in glass frit would require a much broader pallette of colors than the stock available colors. It dawned on me that what i really wanted to do was to paint with the colored glass, "frit", much like another artist would paint in oils or acylics. The major difference is that i would have to make up my palette ahead of the actual painting. i first experimented with overlaying semi-transparent sheets of glass but it did not give me the results that i wanted. I then experimented mixing the frit in varying ratios. It was the beginning of a long road. I would take a stock color frit, say "Spring Green" and dilute it with other stock color frit, for example "Marzipan" in about a dozen different formulas. I never knew what i would get, and it diddn't matter. This was fun! After carefully measuring the proper amounts for any given ratio, I would then vigerously shake the little jar and then pour out on the kiln shelf. After covering the 20 x 20 kiln shelf with about 20 differnt formulas I would then fuse in the glass kiln at about 1500 degrees. After cooling I then crush in a glass crusher and Voila! i have just birthed 20 new colors.
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Then there was the need for custom blended sheets. 2 ways to make them. Used the premixed custom blended frit and poured it on the kiln shelf and fused. Styled 2 was to use a basic background frit color and apply various other blends in random places then fuse.
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Of course the next logical step in custom blends was to create custom blended stringer. I took the custom blend fused sheets and cut them into strips and then pulled stringer from them using the torch. Want a nice multi-colored straw grass of tree limb? no problem
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