I am amazed at all the compliments. Thank you very much. The sculptures are pretty small, about 2-3" tall. It is a long process to make them and takes so much practice I was astounded. If you like it though you will keep on doing it as much as you possibly can. I've been doing glass almost 2.5 yrs now and I go to glass studio 3-4 days a week practicing for about 8-10 hrs a week.
The sculptures have many steps to make. You have to first mix colors to make color combos you want to use. On cactus you will see many colors mixed. Then you melt all colors in for a certain element of sculpture such as bird and shape then into what you are going to make. Each piece has to be made separately and put in kiln to heat thoroughly. The hardest part is putting everything together. You have to weld (melt glass between 2 pieces) until all parts are together. Throughout the assembly process you must continuously heat sculpture thru and thru as it is being assembled. You don't want it to crack from thermal shock between 2 or more areas of different heat bases. As you are doing all this you are holding the piece not with your hands but a clear rod that has been attached (welded)to sculpture (called a punty). You attach it with a cold joint so when you are finished it just snaps off at connection point instead of having to be melted off.
Sorry for being so winded, but I love to talk about glass.
Wren, I hear you are very artistic. What kind of art do you do?