Diversity of Stained Glass

This Saturday I am running a stained glass mosaic workshop at the  Creative Glass Guild in Bristol by request of the guild. They stock a huge range of glass, and I am almost wishing I was attending the class instead of running it to get my hands on all that glass!

We will be making either glass on  board using opaque glass, or glass on glass using transparent glass. A favourite opaque glass I often use in my work is   “bullseye” glass,  a fusing glass from Oregan, US.  It  has an intense colour similar to smalti. Then there are streaky glasses such as “spectrum wispy”  which are great for skies, storms and seas.

I have been in the workshed this week making some sample mosaics to take with me to show the students. What I love about the glass on glass technique is that it offers various options for display. Naturally the first option  is to make the most of the light shining through the glass and hang it in a window. You don’t even need to grout it.

Other options include  placing  white paper, mirror, patterened papers or textiles behind the finished glass on glass piece. Grouting is also effective as it gives the mosaic  solidity .

Here is one of my sample pieces against the light, against white paper, against mirror and grouted against the light.