New and Improved Beetles

These are more of my dichroic beetles, which I also fused before I realized that they would have blisters of trapped air in them.  Some of them have iridescent glass as a background, which does weird things to the glass on top of it. I’ll explain more in the next post.

New Beetles

I liked my other beetles, but they really needed dichroic class. Dichroic glass looks like beetle’s wings, one of the most beautiful things in nature, and I had to combine them. First, I made the legs by cutting masking tape, lifting the positive, spraying with hairspray, and dusting it with mica pigments.  When I lifted …

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Butterflies

Now that I’d done a few beetles, I decided to see if I could make a butterfly that looked okay. Butterflies are easy to do poorly, and hard to do well. I find that if I stray too far from a photograph or good drawing of a butterfly, it doesn’t look as real as I’d …

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First Beetles

At this point in the class, I decided to just go and buy some more clear glass. If you ever take a glass fusing class, be aware that you will likely use more clear glass than any other color, for capping dichro if nothing else. I hadn’t yet tested the mica pigments yet, so the …

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Dragonfly in Amber Glass

For this dragonfly, I used a clear sheet over amber.   The instructor suggested it for greater visibility.  She didn’t quite understand that I was a skinflint who didn’t want to buy more clear glass, I guess.  This was before I had tested the mica pigments to see which ones worked (bright gold) and which …

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