It hasn't all been grubby sketches of celtic interlace. I haven't done much sculpture in glass that wasn't all beads in years, and working with a large (for me), solid and somewhat molten hunk of glass close to 2 oz (50g) was something of an experience.

Bird. Measures about 2.5", iirc

Besides having to get used to how long the glass stayed soft, there was the annoyance of getting the thing into the kiln before the tail cracked. My working methods for making these things is as follows:

• preheat 068 or 004 15mm rod in kiln
• remove scum from ends if necessary
• make an oval mass, perhaps 18–20mm in diameter
• touch underside of rod in coral pink; sides in blue-grey TE
• then back (top) in silver blue powder
• case with 004 or 068 8mm rod to increase mass (& protect TE from boiling)
• dip dark blue portion in opaque and/or transparent fine cobalt frit
• mass should be evenly heated, but allow heat gradient to cool towards distal end
• grasp distal end with peters tweezers and gently pull up to form head/eyes
• use a standard size rod to attach beak, thinning where the tip will be
• melt off thick rod
• transfer bird, now hanging off that beak, to non-dominant hand
• heat evenly, with gradient towards tail.
• flatten on graphic block
• heat more, squeeze tail end with flat ridged mashers
• pull out tail with tweezers
• heat tweezers, burn off beak
• grasp tail with warm tweezers (this is fun part) place in kiln, preferably upside up so any kiln dust stays on the bottom, and if bird sags, it sags downward

glass birdie. effetre, thompson enamels, silver reduction powder. mar 2015. This was shot with the sony, which I don't know how to set the white balance. 068 pink—particularly the lot I was using—is orangey, but not this orangey.

Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.