After the glass is masked off, the design is drawn or transferred onto the protective mask. The design is then cut out, and the areas of the design to be blasted into the glass are pulled away from the glass. This effectively exposes only those portions of the glass to be blasted. Sand carved glass is very similar in effect to air brushing. The main differences between the two are color schemes and actual physical depth.
Coloring is the main difference between the two arts.
With the air brush, depth is created by using dark colors to complement the light colors, creating a sense of depth. With sand blasting, the artist is limited to shading. The lighter the sand blasting, the closer to the original color of the glass which always appears darker than those areas sand blasted. The second difference is to the benefit of sandblasting. Whereas air brushing is a completely surface application, sand blasting is a type of sculpting.