If you haven’t already, you should consider a set of Glassline Paints. I acquired a set and have been doing some playing and experimenting. One possible use that I am very curious about is using paints instead of powder for fossil projects. So, I decided to do some trial firings. If you are new to the site, I am ALL about testing and more testing.
First I collected my materials. This is a compare and contrast type of deal, so I’m going to test Mica as well as Glassline Paint and Float Fire powder.
After shaking the paint well to mix it, I painted on yellow and orange and then set the leaf aside to dry.
Then, I mixed the mica very well and painted it on a different leaf and set it aside to dry.
Last but not least, I painted white glue on a third leaf and added pink Float Fire powder. (wear a respirator)
Then, into the kiln they go, covered by pieces of float glass. I should note here that although I am using float glass for this test, all 3 of these products are also compatible with bottle glass.
And here they are after a standard full fuse firing. Notice how much smaller the leaves are.
These are still in the kiln though, so we won’t have a really good idea of how successful they are until we take them out and wash them.
So, final results and my thoughts on each:
Wonderful! The Glassline looks great. I love that the leaf detail remains visible. This is definitely a direction to explore, particularly in terms of kid projects.
Hmmm. The mica is a bit disappointing. It’s interesting that the leaf print remains, as well as very tiny traces of mica. I’m not giving up on this one yet, but next time I will add the mica to the GlassLine and see if that helps.
Good enough, I suppose. I’m disappointed that the leaf details are obscured, and I’m not sure the complication of added safety precautions are worth the end result.
Conclusions:
GlassLine paints are a clear winner for this technique! I will be moving forward with additional tests with bottle glass and mica.