As you might have noticed I love playing with glass. One of the techniques I've tried but not really mastered is casting. So I was quite excited to see Warm Glass offering a casting class in their Glass School.
Casting glass half spheres with Silvia Levenson, took us through the whole process of making a mould, filling it with glass, adding designs and finishing it off.
During 3 live calls over 3 weeks she shared her knowledge, inspiration and answered all our questions. And with a week between each call we could, in theory, join in.
I did try, but work kept getting in the way. But while I didn't keep up, I have now completed my first attempt and I really want to have another go as I have lots of ideas going forward.
I ended up making 6 half spheres as I had enough materials and a kiln big enough to take them.
Making the moulds and doing the first fire with glass billet was quite straight forward. But then I had to cut some glass circles and it took me a little while to get the courage up to try that. In the end it was pretty straight forward, helped by the fact I bought myself a circle cutter.
Next step was to decorate some of the circles for each half sphere. I would have loved to try a stencil, but I didn't have any and didn't have time to find any.
So in two I added one of my glass leaves. In one I tried to make a landscape. In a couple I used decals. I did add some gold stars but they burnt off which was disappointing. (something to remember for next time).
I wasn't sure what to do with the last one, so I used some bubble powder. I had no idea what it would do or how much to use (I think I over did it). But I do love the result!
I have so many other ideas that I want to try now!
I really enjoyed this project. It stretched my but in a good way and I definitive want to have another go. The only problem is how long you have to wait before being able to open the kiln. With such large chunks of glass they have to cool very very slowly so they don't crack. I hated waiting!
