This design came about because I wanted to create a ‘Spanish’ type of bowl. You know, the loud ones you see in the Spanish markets with yellow and blue flowers on them. Using a cookie cutter for the flower shape, I drew around the cutter onto the glass then hand cut each flower. This took me forever, with many broken at the petals. Eventually, I made my bowl. The first time I displayed it at a show, I sold it! This took me by surprise, as I hadn’t really wanted to sell it, I wanted to keep it for myself. So, I made another one, which again, took a long time. A visitor to my studio, liked it so much, she bought it!!
Bye this time, I had bought myself some red accessories for my kitchen, so I decided to make a red flowered bowl to match. However, I didn’t have the time to cut each flower. As I had some leftover coloured glass, I decided to crush the glass by wrapping it in thick paper and bashing it with a hammer. I then cut two clear glass circles and placed them on top of each other. Then, placing the cookie cutter on the double circle, sprinkled the crushed glass into the cutter. As each ‘flower’ was created, I used a paint brush to gently push the fallen crushed glass into shape. I then crushed some black glass and sprinkled it on the centres and different coloured green and yellow glass to sprinke it around the red flowers.
After fusing and slumping the glass into the bowl shape, I thought WOW, it reminded me of poppies dancing in the fields in Flanders, so I kept the bowl! The flowers look as if they have been hand painted, yet its all glass.
I loved it so much and, having quite a bit of leftover glass, decided to create a range of different sized bowls of colourful flowers, with coasters to match, using different coloured glass.
