Sandcarving, Painting & Lighting Glass Art

It’s my pleasure to feature Dave Schulte in this post with his art which mixes sandcarving with painting and LED lighting to highlight the details. As many of us know, he was featured in the past for his excellent shadeblasting glass etching art. Now he has been getting more involved in multi-stage sandcarving as well and it is great. The below are a few projects he has shared with us and a description of the process he uses.

Lately I have been carving, painting and lighting some pieces and I love how they look when finished. I bought a cheap Harbor Freight blast cabinet and hooked a shop-vac up to it with a cyclone dust separator. I attached the foot pedal switch that Eric made (with works very well by the way!) to my pot blaster. I blast at 40 psi using 120 grit AO keeping the nozzle at 90 degrees to the glass. The color is added with an airbrush and is Createx acrylic airbrush paint. I build the LED light bases from wood using my table saw, router and sander. The mask is 6mil vinyl I purchased from Etchmasters in New Mexico. I used photos of the fish blown up on copy paper glued to the vinyl and hand cut all. The image is weeded and blasted in stages. When blasting the back of glass remember to make your image reversed because you’ll be viewing the work from the opposite side. After completing the blasting, the glass is wiped down with alcohol and then airbrush painted. I seal them with acrylic spray gloss sealer before removing the perimeter mask.

Just finished this one for my son.

This is the sandcarving and painting on a LED stand at a slight angle so you can see the depth.

Front view of the sandcarved tiger in a LED stand and lit up.

Multi-Stage Glass Sandcarving of Tarpon Fish & Painted

This project turned out perfect by mixing paint with the glass sandcarving of the fish. The paint he added really complimented the carving with a shimmery tone resembling a real fish. Dave shared the below 3 photos:

A view of the front side after sandblasting the back side. You can see the sandmask stencil still in place on the front.

A view of the fish sandcarved and then painted.

Here is the painted and sandcarved tarpon placed in a LED stand to lit it up!

Fish Art Design Sandcarved and LED Lit

Here is another design which looks like a tribal tattoo art sandcarved onto a glass and placed into a LED stand.

Salt Water Fish Sandcarvings

This is a great assortment of salt water fish he sandcarved into circular glass items and placed in a LED stand. I like the way he used different LED colors to lit them up. It looks like he sandcarved an emperor angelfish, raccoon butterflyfish, etc.

Close ups of these are below:

Thank you!

Thank you for sharing Dave! You inspire us all. Please leave Dave some comments or questions below.

Related posts:

Glass Sandcarving Art of Shark, Model and Dragon by Kyle Goodwin Tips on Lighting up Large Sandcarvings Sandcarving Recycled Glass Block Crafts & Painting Them Shadeblast Glass Etching Art + the Use of Sharpie Markers