Pate de verre

 

I am now working on new projects in glass. The procedure is called "pâte de verre" and it's an old french technique of making glass objects.

First you make a model in clay, then you cast gypsum around it, to form a mold.

The mold is polished and reworked, and then you grind glass. The grinded glass is sieved into different sizes, and (depending on the type of ground) you mix it with an adhesive. I use wallpaperglue. Then you lay down one or more layers of the glass into the mold, and it's heated.

These objects are glass flowers, to be fitted into the vase I made two weeks ago. I still have to make the stems.