From Ophelia to Prince

Frit lace is a fusing technique where you lay glass frit (finely ground pre-fused glass) on the kiln shelf and fire it for a short burst of time on a low temperature. I say a short burst of time, but it still has to stay in the kiln for around 12 hours. I say a low temperature but it’s still over 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit (over 700 degrees Celsius).

I learned about this during one of Warm Glass‘s online courses with the glass artist Kate Clements.

Normally when you fuse glass, you fuse it to a hotter temperature for a longer time and it melts and becomes smooth with no joins, gaps or jagged edges. Glass wants to fuse to 6mm thickness so if you lay out a single sheet of glass it will tighten up to become 6mm. If you lay out several layers of glass it will spread out until it reaches 6mm.

When you are fusing frit lace, you want the glass to pull apart. You don’t want it to bunch up to 6mm. You don’t want it to be smooth; you want to create texture and you want it to stay thin and delicate…but not so thin and delicate that it falls apart in your hands.

Back to the class. Kate showed us some work in her studio. One of the pieces stood out… Ophelia. It was sugary, delicate, shaded, ephemeral. Just beautiful. She took the frit lace technique a step further and showed us how to create graduated colour and how to control where you want it to pull apart.

But first, I had to practice…

Practice - blue dayflying moth

You can see my pencil drawing on the left. This was done directly on the kiln shelf. Normally I use Bullseye Thinfire paper but it can create texture you don’t want so everything was done on a freshly kiln washed kiln shelf.

Next, I placed glass frit where I wanted it, making sure there were no gaps. This is important for black frit in particular as black glass is soft and can pull apart more than other colours.

Here you can see the final result. The black has pulled apart more than the blue (see above) and it’s thin and delicate but surprisingly strong.

The eagle eyed amongst you will know a blue day flying moth doesn’t have a red body but it’s the colour I had…

Back to His Purple Badness. The moth was my third test piece. I have posted some of my first tests at the bottom of the post. Through these test pieces, I learned that my kiln runs a bit hot. I cut the temperature down for Prince as I wanted to keep that sugary texture. I used course frit for the hair and it’s got the most wonderful texture.

This time, I traced the drawing onto tracing paper then used carbon paper to transfer it onto the kiln shelf. It was such a hot day I decided to do this outside, but I had to sellotape the tracing paper and carbon paper onto the kiln shelf so it wouldn’t blow away. I went over the traced image with pencil and marked where the different colours would go.

Then I started placing the frit, slowly manoeuvring it into place and trying to keep a consistent depth.

After all the frit was placed, I had to carefully lower the kiln shelf into the kiln so the frit didn’t move.

I have a Skutt Glassmaster LT kiln. I reduced the temp to 1325 degrees, set a two segment programme and shut the door for 12 hours.

Luckily, he was even better than I expected. The texture is perfect… sugary, sparkly, strong but delicate. The black pulled apart around the eye/eyebrow / eyelashes just right! And I’m glad I added that pop of purple colour at the bottom.

He’s not for sale but you can see what else is in my shop today. I also do custom work so if you have an idea for a portrait, get in touch.