Heart & Soul Glass Designs uses the age old technique of substrate blasting to remove the smooth surface of glass to create their art. Blast cabinets, blasting booths and on-site blasting machines are just a start for creating their unique art.
Handcrafted Etching:
At Heart & Soul, we use the time proven, old fashioned methods to etch glass. No lasers for us. We etch with aggregate, by hand, on site if necessary. Hand etching provides you a personal and custom experience.
What is glass etching:
Glass etching is the process of removing the top shiny layer from glass surface making it rough using a sand blaster with an aggregate blown on the glass to make a design. There are different techniques of glass etching.
Surface etching:
This technique is a single stage process of frosting a design or making it opaque in either a positive (the design is opaque and surrounding area is clear) or negative (the design is clear and the surrounding area is opaque). This technique is the least time consuming and most affordable.
Shading:
This technique is a surface etch also, however, it uses varying shades of grey by controlling the amount of glass blasted off giving the design an airbrushed effect. This technique is very time consuming and is reflected in the pricing.
Multistage carving:
This technique blast deep into the glass in a single or multi levels giving the design a 3-d effect. This technique is often used combined with the other techniques to create a very beautiful art piece with a definate wow factor. This is the most time consuming technique commanding the greatest skill and will have the highest pricing.
