One of the best known glass blowers in the world today is Dale Chihuly.
At this link there is a video of him talking about the role that drawing/painting has in his work. It’s interesting to hear him talk about something other than glass.
I find it particularly interesting that he says that without the paintings/drawings that he doesn’t think his work would have progresses as far as quickly and that he does upwards of 1,000 paintings a year. I wonder where they all go.