The element Quintessence, also known as The Fifth Element, was more challenging to portray, since it is more abstract than the other four. My first attempt was dark and enigmatic, but the official piece is instead colorful and bright. This was influenced in part by the class instructor, who visualised the element in such terms after I described it to him, and in part by the gradiated twisted cane we made in class that day. This is twisted cane with an opaque center (here I used White glass) and four different transparents. When twisted, this results in a double-spiral where the colors on each end that blend into their opposite. For this cane I used Transparent Blue shading to Gaia on one side and Root Beer Transparent shading to Chestnut Transparent on the other. I then melted the twisted cane around a Clear glass core for the final piece.

5th piece in order of creation