Glass birds
Glass birds bring nature all the way into your home. The bright colors and beautiful shapes give you joy every day as the sunlight plays through the glass. At the bottom of the page Gitte Klarup tells more about how the glass birds are created.
Glass birds require overview and patience
"The production of glass birds is very difficult and demanding," says Gitte Klarup, the artist behind the extensive series of glass birds. During her career as a glass artist, she has perfected a complicated technique that she uses to create the glass birds.
"There must be 100% focus, even though I have over 27 years of experience with glass birds. It requires overview, patience and a great knowledge of the characteristics of the different colors. It is actually so difficult that even though my assistant has 18 years of experience she leaves the coloring to me. On the other hand she does all the cutting work. But not the beak .... because it requires the precision of half a millimeter when it is cut", says Gitte Klarup about working with the glass birds.
A glass bird consists of 4 pieces of glass
As a rule, one glass bird consists of 4 pieces of glass. The glass is a particularly high quality window glass. The 4 pieces of glass are cut by hand and the cutting must be completely accurate, otherwise the glass bird will be discarded.
"The bird's glass parts must all be cut precisely ... very precisely! This must be cut: body, wing, beak and back piece for the enclosure of the glass bird's suspension. There must be no notches where the line must be razor sharp. It is very difficult to cut so small pieces of glass so accurately", Gitte Klarup elaborates, and goes on to say about the production:
"All the parts, except the back piece, are individually colored with powdered glass. This is done with a sieve and special tools. When everything is placed on the oven plate, the glass bird is put in the oven and the glass and colors are fused at about 825 degrees."
After 16-18 hours of burning, the small glass birds are ready to leave the nest. Yet another set of small works of art has been created. (At the bottom of the page you can see pictures of the manufacturing process.)
A gift for a bird lover - maybe yourself?
The glass birds are an obvious gift idea for birthdays and holidays, maybe even for yourself? They decorate and can be placed anywhere in the home - even in the garden. The glass is not damaged by either rain or frost.
Just as the birds in nature are unique and individual, so are our glass birds. The small differences from bird to bird make them even more realistic. There is great consistency in the fabrication, but these are glass birds made by hand, so there will be variations in the small details.
The glass parts are cut with a drawing as a template:
The glass parts (here the beak) are sprinkled with powdered, stained glass:
The powdered glass parts are assembled into a bird:
The birds are placed on an oven plate and burned for 16-18 hours:
The finished glass bird. Glass parts and colors are fused together:
Gitte Klarup, the artist behind the glass birds:
