Adding Glass To Pottery – A Crackling Glass Effect

I love to visit other artisans at Christmas shows, summer markets and studio tours. On one studio tour in my early pottery-making days, I saw a potter’s interesting candle stick holders. He made a candle stick holder in the center of a deep-rim dish. He then put broken glass from lightbulbs in the rims, over the glaze and fired them. It looked like a frozen ice moat around the candle stick.

I tried this technique and made clay pendants with rims to hold the glass. I put broken light bulbs over different glazes. I was amazed as the glazes reacted with the glass creating stunning colours. Some didn’t even look like the colour of the glazes.

I ventured further into this glass on glaze and bought coloured glass from my pottery supplier. I turned saucers on my pottery wheel. Once they were bone dry I painted flower peddles and a flying insect on the rim. I bisque-fired them, then dipped them in clear glaze and put glass in the center, then glaze-fired them. For safety, they can’t be used for food as the glass could chip off, especially if washed in the dishwasher. They do make pretty ring or trinket dishes.

Green Glass

Black Glass

Red Glass

Ring Dishes with glass melted in the center.

These ring dishes are for sale on my Etsy shop. Click the orange button below.

A local potter retired and gave me a truckload of clay, glazes and a box of glass left over from a stained glass maker. What ceramic pieces could I add glass to for unique effects? Whatever I made had to sit flat on my kiln shelf as the glass sits loosely on the glaze until it is melted during the firing.

I made angel and candle stick ornaments. I cut them out with a cookie cutter, then took the clay out of the center where I wanted the glass to sit. I bisque-fired them then dipped them in clear glaze and put glass pieces on the craved-out areas. They were glazed-fired. I quite like the crackling effect of the glass.