My First Avian
What follows was my proof of process in developing this series
The big take away aside from my proportions being great, was that square murrini will remain square in the finished bird, so now I grind away the sharp edges on the shoulders, and cove the corresponding murrini on the neck.​
Below is a condensed pictorial version of how I transform sheet glass into hot blown sculpted birds and a link to the jewelry line my wife and I developed to repurpose my leftover murrini.
Sheets of Bullseye Glass are cut into strips and stacked to make bricks of solid pattern.
The murrini stacks are placed in a cold oven and brought slowly up to a melting temperature.
The stacks are picked up on the end of a solid rod. The heat is built up slowly in the block and it is pressed to remove air.
I pull with diamond shears. Here I am shaping a button on the end which I will cool with water so it does not pull thin at this point.
I now pull straight down using a pully system, but here I am pulling the stack into a 10 foot long rod.
The patterned rods are snipped into smaller squares and form the building blocks of my layouts.
Here I am figuring out the first layout and using a book as a guide.
When the tablet is fused, all the little chips melt into one large pattern.
The tablet is sand blasted and the edge is beveled. Then it is put into a cold oven and brought slowly up to melting temperature. I roll it up on a collar of glass on a blow pipe, and shape it into a bubble.
Here the tablet has been closed off into a bubble and I'm starting to shape and inflate the avian body.
I'm getting ready to apply the pontil rod here.
The beak is added, shaped and pulled over a couple of careful steps.