It has been a while.
It has been a long long time since I have posted here. Lots of things going on, which do not involve glass, but involve my life, so haven’t been putting much time into the glass. Plus, the workshop is in the garage which, in Redding during July is about 4000 degrees. So. Not so much fun when you drip sweat continuously, and almost pass out…
BUT… I have a new semi-commission, so I am motivated. A friend asked if I would put my glass up in her massage room during ArtWalk. She just moved into a new room, with big windows that look out onto a gorgeous backyard, and down a long sloping hill (on which we rolled one night, like children, after 4 glasses of wine). It ends at the Sacramento River. So the setting is beautiful. And, of course, I was totally flattered to be asked. The ArtWalk is a couple months away, so I have some time to get busy, as they say.
She chose a turtle pattern. I have been wanting an excuse to do a turtle since I went to Hawaii. I had an idea to do one as a thank you present for the couple who let me stay at their house while I was in Hawaii. But, unfortunately, they are a couple no more, and are no longer on Hawaii. So that idea went out the window.
The funnest, and hardest, part is choosing the glass. Normally, I try to stick as close to reality as possible. With this turtle though, I am making a bit of a departure. Most turtle pieces that I have seen, show the shell in shades of brown. Boring. I had this gorgeous teal/green mottled glass that I have decided will be perfect for the shell.
Gorgeous, discontinued, green mottled
close-up of part I will use for shell
All the photos that I looked at online, at least the ones of Hawaiian green turtles, show a dark shell, dark pebbled bits on the flippers and head, with light brownish neck. The undersides of the turtles are startlingly pale, a pale cream, with almost no spots. Not dealing with the underside with this piece, but I love the contrast of the top and bottom. I decided to mix in some of the teal on the head and flippers, with a brown/yellow streaky for the rest. It’s a crap-shoot, design-wise, but I think it will work out well.
What might not work out so well is the cutting. I swore that I wouldn’t do a bunch of small pieces ever again. Turns out, I lied.
what the hell was I thinking?
You can’t really get around it. The turtles head is covered with all these knobby bits. I could cheat, and just do a single piece but, well, that would be cheating, and I don’t like to do that except on my taxes. (PEE-YOU! skunk is hanging out in the backyard right now. guess that answers the question of what has been russelling around outside at night. hadn’t smelled it until tonight.) I had also considered doing an overlay, like I did with the butterfly, but discarded that idea because the lines are so thin. It would be like trying to cutout and attach a spiders web… I think I would end up tearing it.
Soooooo. The ring saw will be getting work out on this one. I think I will cut them out in larger groupings and then do single strand overlays. That’s the current plan, anyway. I reserve the right to change it at any time =)
One last thing. I am using two colors of blue for the water, a dark and a light, with some ribbons of clear bubbled glass, just for fun. My choices of light blue were limited. I have this one long, narrow strip of med blue that looked very well with the dark blue glass that I had chosen. But it is a pretty small amount of glass. I farted around with it a bit, and made it work, HA!
That’s a damn good use of glass, if I may say so myself. This particular glass is a b-i-t-c-h to cut, so the saw will come in handy on this one also. I used this glass in Ganesha, and had just a hell of a time getting it to break along the score lines. In my experience, this type of glass, with a translucent color mixed with an opaque white swirl is just a friggin’ nightmare. It looks pretty, sure. Scoring, breaking… not so fun. And the surface is jacked up too, like lava as it cools, all lumpy and bumpy.
That’s it for now, kids. More as I go through it.
love affair with stained glass 