These pre-made tiny shapes of glass are wonderful for creating varied glass panels. Making murine involves heating strips or pieces of glass in a certain way to a certain temperature. The resultant melted glass then flows through a small hole in the bottom of a specialist kiln called a vitreograph. This is then carefully pulled into a cane of glass as it cools with the cane then cut into small pieces. I enjoy making long curved flower panels which does involves a fair amount of preparation.
1. The first stage is to make a fully fused panel with various coloured cut shapes on top of a 3mm base of either clear or opaque glass.
2. The pre-made murine can then either be set straight onto the cooled panel or as in the shown images I like to flatten the murine by fusing them between 2 kiln shelves. Also any glass stems can be pre-curved by carefully heating the glass with a candle or burner flame.
3. Over quite a bit of time I then apply any pre-made decorations including stringer and frit to complete this stage.
4. The decorated panel is then tack-fused t so hat the decorations are slightly raised.
5. Finally the piece is slumped at a lower temperature to the desired shape.