I’ve been entertaining myself in the studio with one of my new toys. After making color test strips, I decided to do some playing around with the Glassline paints I got for Christmas.
One of the points of confusion that I see a lot is questions about ‘slumping’ bottles. The confusion comes in because when you melt a bottle flat, you are firing it to a full fuse, not a slump. When you fire a bottle to the lower slump temperature, it will collapse, but not flatten fully.
So, why is this important? Well, for our experiment today, we are using one FUSED bottle, and one ‘raw’ bottle.
and, of course, Glassline Paints:
So, the plan is, add design elements with the paint to both bottles and then fire both bottles to a full fuse and see which one we like better.
Now, adding paint to a round bottle is a little trickier, but not by much. First, place the clean bottle on a flat surface and let it roll until it stays steady. Then, keep the side that is up, up.
Then, carefully, since the paint is wet, put both bottles into the kiln. If your bottle has a tendency to roll in the kiln, you can put a tiny piece of fiber paper under one side to keep it from rolling. Fire to a full fuse using the standard fuse schedule, or one that works well for you.
And, here we are back to talking about fusing vs. slumping of bottles. The bottle on the right has now been fired to a full fuse twice. You can see it does not look spectacular. I find it’s best to try and combine steps to eliminate additional firings if possible. For example, adding the Glassline paint to an unfired bottle!
Detail of the twice fired bottle:
Detail of the once fired bottle:
I am loving the Glassline Paints though, expect to see more tutorials featuring them in the future.