Fused Glass Monarch Butterfly

I've been lucky enough to spot several monarch butterflies in my yard this year, they're loving the butterfly bush I planted for them! The bright orange and black pattern is so striking and I really wanted to try to recreate it in glass.

I usually make my glass art on a square or rectangle base piece of glass, but for this project I decided to try and make a free form butterfly.

Starting with a piece of kiln paper, I traced an image of a monarch butterfly using a black sharpie marker. This will burn off in the kiln and does not affect the final product at all.

The first layer is all clear glass, just to get the basic shape down, then for the second layer I added translucent orange pieces for the wings, some white accents, and black for the body.

Lastly, I filled all the cracks with black powder frit, making sure to keep as much black off of the orange and white glass as possible. After a full fuse in my Skutt kiln I'm very happy with the results! I'm looking forward to using this free form technique to make more pieces in the future.

Check out my Youtube video to see the whole process of making this free form fused glass butterfly!