Fused Glass and Silver Combination Workshop

Best looking liquid in the business!

The fused glass workshop will explore the wonderful colours of dichroic glass using a kiln to fuse it all together at high, carefully controlled temperatures.

I link the fused glass session with either the sterling silver or silver clay workshop in a slightly lengthier course. As most of the time required in the glass course is actually the firing process, combining the different media gives you an opportunity to take home a silver jewellery item as well as a glass creation.

The format of a combined workshop is metal work in the morning, a glass interlude of a few hours, rounding off the day with more metal work. The metal items can be taken home on the day, but the glass is fused overnight and finished items would either need to be collected from the shop or posted to you.

During the glass element of your workshop, you will design and create your own glass jewellery or wall art. You will cut and layer the glass when it is cold, and this “stack” will be fired (heated) in a kiln. As the glass heats up it becomes more liquid and, when it reaches the right temperature, the layers fuse together. In the glass workshops you’ll soon find out that the end result can be an interesting surprise as the final colours may be slightly different to the ones that went into the kiln.

Of course, there are an infinite number of colour combinations that can be achieved – layering on a black base gives a bold colour whereas a transparent background makes the glass pendants a little more chameleon in nature where they can almost change colour depending on what colour clothing you are wearing.

The colour changes during firing are a normal part of the process but it can make matching a specific colour for commissions a bit more of a challenge!