The Last of The Glass (for now)

I am putting away the glass for a bit to focus on a polymer clay sculpture I promised to a friend.

In the meantime here are the last couple of pieces. Click on the pictures to see them jumbo sized.

I gave the blue plane to my dad.



The mirror is my Grandmother's. She asked if I could fix the backs of the mirrors (they were plastic mother-of-pearl discs which had decayed over the years). Kelli and I came up with the mosaic idea.

Tabasco Pepper Stained Glass

I wanted to do something 3D, something I hadn't seen before, something fun.

Here is version 1 of 3D stained glass.



Yes that's an actual unopened bottle of Tabasco.

No, the project didn't come out quite as expected. The gap at the bottom bothers me but there has to be some gap because the bottle is not affixed to the stained glass, it's held in by pressure.

I didn't account for the fact that you cannot see through Tabasco sauce. It might as well be a bottle of barbecue sauce for all the light that gets through. While the green and red glass is brilliant in the sun, the bottle becomes a silhouette. Plus I'm told the sauce will eventually turn brown with age, even unopened.

Oh well. Live and learn. I think I'll try a mini bottle next time or drain the bottle and fill it with colored water.

Have a Biohazard Birthday

Happy Birthday to Drew, my youngest brother. His birthday was the 26 of September but this is the most timely I have given him a gift in maybe 10 years.

I wanted to make something appropriate but kind of evil looking. My mom was the one who came up with the biohazard symbol since Drew is a an engineer working in the environmental remediation field. His degree is in nuclear engineering but the radiation symbol is pretty boring. We agreed the biohazard symbol was much cooler.

Kelli was the one who suggested I use black as the background instead of using a clear or a light color. It worked perfectly.

Ask for a crab

Kenni from work asked for a crab. This is the result.

De Plane, De Plane !

A gift for my former Sgt, Richard Stouff, recently promoted to Lt. Now that he's not in my direct chain of command I can say that he's a class act without it sounding like brown-nosing.

He's a pilot, by the way. Thus the whole plane thing. It's not perfect but I think it came out okay for my first 3D piece. And it's a kaleidoscope but that doesn't photograph well.

Bedeviled by Bevels

Kelli likes crosses and she likes green (and her mom gave me lots of green glass) so I decided to surprise her with a stained glass cross. I picked a Celtic cross because it goes with the whole green theme plus I'm a fan of the Celts (the Irish ones not the Bostonians although, so long as Kobe Bryant is a Laker, them too I guess – but I digress).

It started with that bevel in the middle. See it? It's not elliptical, it's an oval. Although not idea I was working with what I had on hand.

What I didn’t expect was that I was going to screw it up so bad. Usually I solder the pieces upside down so that the front lines are cleaner. I didn't figure out that with the height of the bevel I couldn’t go that route until after I had tried to tack-solder the whole thing.

Crap. It was a mess. I had to rip it all apart and, much like a petulant child, I figured I was done with glass for today and maybe with this piece altogether since it would require unfoiling all the pieces then re-washing and drying and then refoiling to get it right. Blah!

After walking the dog, who reminded me I was ignoring her, I decided to put on my big girl's pants (or something much more masculine) and just start again.

Taking all the foil off is a big pain in the ass since you have to remove all of the old adhesive so that the new foil will stick properly. This is a time consuming, tedious deal. Did I mention that it's a pain in the ass?

After it was over I had a very dull Xacto blade which was replaced just the day before but the pieces were back to where I needed them.

The reason I like all these crafty hobbies is that they teach me patience and force me to slow down. This piece certainly has lived up to that expectation.

Incidentally this is a pretty big piece for a sun-catcher (9 1/2 inches) and with all the small interior pieces couldn’t possibly support its own weight so I got to solder support wire on the back of a piece for the first time.

Fun stuff.

SugarBaby Stained Glass

It started with a picture of our dog as a puppy


Then, using Photoshop, I made a stained glass design (all rights reserved, thank you)

then I numbered the pieces (total pieces 57)



And traced it onto mylar



Then cut the mylar into pattern pieces



then I glued the pattern pieces to the glass as a guide to cutting the pieces (this is the way my mother in law works, I know other folks trace directly onto the glass using a lightbox or whatever but I'm new so I'm just doing what I know will work)



then cut and grind, cut and grind. I'm getting better at cutting so I don't have to grind nearly as much.
then foil all the pieces and assemble upside down


and then after soldering (inexpertly still, sigh) , washing, adding patina, then washing again


Next... The Who ?

we'll see

Stained Glass so far

Here's what I've done in the order I finished them.



The soldering is sloppy but I'm getting better. I'm at the literal bleeding edge of my abilities just doing basic stuff right now.

Oh yeah and that is Sharpie for the teeth of the skull. I couldn't quite pull off using wire and after burning myself twice trying I figured I'd just paint the spaces in. I think I'll be able to wash off the marker and fix it with real paint or some other way eventually. Skull version 2 will be both better and a little "darker." But that's for later.

I think I'll do Sugar Baby next. I managed to draw a very do-able design.

I have this huge "the Who" project in the works too.

I've tried to draw* a Jimi Hendrix design but it's proving much more difficult to get the face just right. He's got these little expressions that are hard to capture in bits and pieces and still be identifiable.

*by draw I mean trace using PhotoShop. I can't draw for beans.

There Will Be Blood

I have a new hobby: stained glass.

When my mother-in-law recently moved to her new home she reevaluated her arts and craft interests and asked if I’d be interested in her stained glass and all of her stained glass equipment. It took me about a nanosecond to say “yes, please.”

I might actually do a little off-shoot blog strictly for adventures in glass, linked from this one. This would involve updating two blogs and since I have enough trouble lately updating even one blog… we’ll see.

I love the whole idea of stained glass. Not only does it look pretty cool when it’s done but every step along the way is fraught with danger. Everything is either razor sharp, poisonous, or highly corrosive. Anyway, here are my thoughts on the art and serious craft of stained glass (copper foil method).

1. It’s an expensive hobby. Had I not inherited the glass and tools there’s no way I could afford to jump right in like I have. Beginner’s tool kits (including a grinder) run in the $200-300 range. Plate glass is fairly cheap to practice on but actual stained glass will set you back some serious money in a hurry.

2. Cutting glass is fun but there’s some serious skill involved in doing it correctly. It’s getting easier but it’s going to take practice, practice, practice to be really good at it. Using Photoshop I have been able to design my own patterns and I’m really enjoying that process but I was doing patterns before I realized that I shouldn’t build-in shapes which are impossible to cut by hand. I have a ring saw but I’ve been discouraged from using it until I develop some hand-cutting skills.

3. Soldering is fun but getting it right is tricky. Again it’s all about practice, practice, practice.

I currently have 3 projects working at once. One is a sun catcher which is all done but the patina. The second is a larger piece which consists of 40 squares which needs the soldering touched up, framed, then the patina applied. The third is a skull panel which is cut but not foiled yet. It’s much more complicated and I need to make sure all the intricate pieces fit as they are supposed to.

Pictures will be forthcoming.

Patience is definitely required. Patience does not come naturally to me so perhaps this will allow me to exercise it more often.

After noodling around with the glass I have new appreciation for the level of craftsmanship required to do a good quality glass project.

And yes, there has been and will continue to be blood. I am thinking of doing a panel featuring a hand with lots of glass cuts in it. We’ll see.