There is a great deal of advanced prep work in order to make a Field of Flowers Vase. We need to create the murine flowers prior to the day we blow the vase. To do this, we layer the glass colors, gathering clear and rolling into the color chips called frit and melt the chips into the clear. Roll after roll we gather a large lug of glass. As we heat the solid lug of color, we get it hot enough so that it stretches and pulls out into skinny long stringers. After the glass stringers cool we cut them crosswise creating little disks of colored rings that represent flowers.
Once the little murine flowers are made, we can proceed with the creation of a field of flowers vase. We gather clear on the end of a blow pipe and layer the colors from the inside out, and build a landscape scene. The vase starts with a core of clear with a white on top of the first gather. Another layer of clear is gathered over the white and then the scene is created. A roll of light blue becomes the sky. Next, a scattering of white flecks become the clouds. Then a layer of a green mix is added to create the grassy field. We are gathering each element of the scene one on top of another and little by little we have a field of flowers. The final color layer picked up off the hot plate is the murine flowers. After gathering all those layers, we begin to see the formation of a scene. We then encase clear over the top, giving this landscape scene a very 3-d effect.
