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City Skyline
This simple piece came about sole in an effort to use up some of the surplus pieces of glass I had left over from the wall sconce project. Cutting glass creates an inordinate amount of small fragments and mosaic is an ideal way to use them up. If you do want to start on a glass mosaic project many glass retailers sell boxes of mixed colour fragments by weight which would be very useful for this type of project.
Some time ago on my stained glass evening class I had seen a girl creating a beautiful tropical fish scene using this technique (to which mine sadly bears no comparison). Nonetheless I wanted to see how effective glass on glass could be.
To create glass mosaic all you basically need are glass fragments, a sheet of plain glass and some decent glue. You lay the picture, glue the pieces and grout with whatever material you consider suitable. Because of how they are made you can only view a glass mosaic from one side. No matter how neat and tidy the reverse is you still won’t get the same effect as from the front. If this is important you can get over this problem by using a solid surface for your mount but you will lose the translucency of the glass.
I’m not happy with this piece though. I underestimated its simplicity and thereby made several mistakes which I would change if I did another piece:
The black glass I used for the buildings was far too dense and allows no light through whatsoever. I had expected it forming a silhouette effect but in reality it just formed a light block. Many glass crafters use an electrical light box so they can work on a piece whilst it’s illuminated from below and indeed this is on my wish list for this year. Had I used one I might have seen this problem earlier. |
It seemed so much simpler to cut my larger areas in one piece and sub-divide them afterwards. I should have realised that this wouldn’t be effective but you learn from your mistakes. On the sky and the clouds where I had used streaked glass it was obvious what I had done and the effect just didn’t look right. |
Fortunately though the whole piece didn’t take long to make and it adds a little ornamentation to a corner of my study window. It did make me realise though how important the planning and design stages are in my work and I was determined that the next project would be a classic.