I am obsessed with our local Hebden Bridge houses.  Unusually tall, houses built out of Yorkshire stone rising in long rows on the hillside.  I have been trying, with limited success to represent them with glass.  My first attempt was some time ago using copper foil.  This picture took hours.  Wrapping the foil round the tiny windows and trimming it to size required enormous patience and although pleased with the result as a first attempt I vowed never to do it again.

Then I took up fusing. My first experiments were with float and flossing (colour coated on one side) glass.  With this glass layering more than one layer with colour resulted in bubbling which couldn’t be controlled.  This image shows a row of standing houses made with a layer of flossing glass placed on top of float  glass and a further (bubbled) layer to make the windows.  Although seemingly fused together once slumped in a mould the two layers of glass seemed to move independently, the top layer slipping off the bottom float layer causing the vertical lines in this picture.  I am currently experimenting again with this idea with better glass.

In the meantime, a friend has requested I recreate the copper foiled picture for her above so, I have turned to experimenting with powders.  Here is my first attempt, hot out of the kiln.  The challenge here is to work out how much powder is needed and how to keep it within the desired shape.  I managed to knock this as I was placing something else next to it in the kiln and consequently ruined the bottom and one of the sides.

I am not a patient person but if I don’t ever learn anything else from my experiments with glass I think I will eventually learn patience.