Underwater

I made this for my husband's birthday.  It represents something we both love and have spent a lot of time around - the sea!

It is all Bullseye glass.  There was a lot of freehand cutting involved.  After I drew the water pattern on paper, I numbered each piece on paper and on the glass as I cut so I could fit them together.   I added some transparent and opal frits to create a wave feel and to fill the gaps between the water pieces. The "water" was fired on top of clear Tekta. I then added some sea grass (made of lace I was fooling around with earlier), an octopus and a jellyfish, and some more sand pieces. Fire #2, a hot tack that put everything into the background, I used a layer of fine clear powder with this and the final fire to control devit.

Final fire #3 was more depth with the addition of more coarse sand frit, additional frit to octopus, some powder along sand bottom, additional lace, additional tentacles (bent using a candle flame). 

Overall I'm pleased (husband loved it). I learned a few things, use lots of powder always, reactions occur with turquoise blue frit in the seams against French Vanilla/turquoise infusion glass!  Multiple firings allows for lots of depth.

Glass:  All transparents except French Vanilla/Turquoise infusion glass.  Steel Blue, True Blue, Lt Aquamarine, Aquamarine Blue, Aqua Blue Tint/White streaky.

Frits/Powders: White Opal, Oregon Grey transparent, Tan transparent, Juniper Blue Tint transparent, Golden Green opal, Turquoise Blue transparent and opal, Citronelle opal, Deep Lavender transparent, Light Plum transparent, LIght Violet transparent, Deep Red opal.

Stringers: Deco Grey opal, Clear reactive, Turquoise transparent, Aqua opal

It was a really fun project!