love affair with stained glass

working feverishly

•September 21, 2011 • Leave a Comment

I’ve developed a new habit. I get out of bed between 6 and 6:30 in the a.m. (which, if you knew me, would stun you, lol), i fix a cup of fake coffee, and i work on glass for an hour. In my pajamas. the total height of decadence, working on glass in my pjs. I have a little less than 6 weeks to Artwalk. I have joined the Association, paid my fees, and sent in the application. I still need to figure out how i am going to display the art, but that is for another day.

I finished one fish windsock. the place i had purchased the large glass beads for the lures from, in the past, had crap for selectioin. and two of the 5 beads i did buy weren’t drilled all the way through and i couldn’t get them on the wire. very frustrating. if anyone has a suggestion on where i can get large, clunky glass beads in cool colors (the size of a fat green grape or thereabouts), please send me an email. maybe i should check etsy.

not quite finished. need to find those glass beads. i am super happy with teh color scheme on this one. i was planning on making a second one, with a neato glass i have that is a red/orange/yellow/white. but something in me says not to use that glass for a fish. to keep the fish in the cool tones. i have anotehr piece of glass that is delicately mottled, mainly teal, but with some streaks of white, yellow and pink in it. if i have time, i will probably do that.

have begun work on northern light v2. enlarged the pattern, expanded it. the overall size is up form 9×30 to 13×36. it doesn’t sound like much, but the iimage looks considerabley larger. i moved the tree off-center, added some mountains and extended the lights. it’s pretty awesome. i might have to sell the smaller one and keep the larger one. or redo it completely for myself if i sell it at the Artwalk.

hard to believe this pile will turn into a gorgeous work of art

Have quite a few pieces in the pipeline too. picked up a xmas piece, to add to my long overdue gift for my cousin. i think that is all i am going to take for xmas. its only 7 weeks between the artwalk and xmas day… i have no idea how i am going to be feeling, emotionally, this year, with it being the first without my mom. probably a good idea to not create too many stressors.

beginning the first of the year, i will be working on a commission piece for an old friend. Two large windows for her house, one a sea life, the other a floral. oh, and the owner of the turtle has decided that it needs a companion piece, which will be a duplicate of the breaching humpback, summer fling, hawaiian fling. i forget what i called it. so. lots on the to do list. and there is the county fair to consider. making apiece for that and entering it. and next years ArtWalk.

time flies…

Posted in Commissions, Custom, For Sale

Ramping up for ArtWalk

•August 22, 2011 • Leave a Comment

I hope to participate in the annual ArtWalk festivities in Red Bluff, CA. Businesses have open houses, and a limited number of them host an artist. I am hoping to participate as a business and an artist. They close of part of downtown, have food and drink and live bands. Last year over 3000 people attended. Not bad for a town of 13K. There is a little bit of red tape and maybe some crony-ism going on, so I do not know yet if I will be able to do as I hope. I am forging ahead with the glass work as though the verdict is the one i want.

I plan to have the Breaching Humpback, Jellyfish, Sunflower, 2 Fish Windsocks, a Northern Lights and a detail of the Angel’s Trumpet and Hummingbird piece. Fingers crossed. All done and ready by November 4th. I think I might actually make it work. It would be great if I could get more done, but that is the plan I am working with. The second humpback piece has been morphing in my mind, into something different, something more personal, and I am not yet ready to work on it, so that is tabled, for now.

Did I post the Jellies?

The latest finished piece is the Sunflower. Love this. Taken from an issue of Stained Glass News, with some petal modifications. I just can’t seem to resist messing with each pattern. there is always something that i can tweek, lol.

Finished size is 14.75 x 20.75. Price is $175. Like i said, I am super happy with this piece and will enjoy it until November.

I stumbled onto another glass artists website, or her link on another glass website, ArtFire.com, while i was looking for a pattern. I really like her work. the Queen of Hearts piece is gorgeous. Her prices are substantial and I am curious if she actually sells stuff for those prices. It would probably be rude to ask, though. If she can, then more power to her!! I like her fuschia hair too.

ok. gotta hit the shower and head to work. Have a great day!

Posted in Custom, Flowers, Patterns

Sunflower

•July 23, 2011 • Leave a Comment

on to the next one. sunflower. from a pattern in Stained Glass News. i had a window placed in there one time, in their reader’s projects section. they sent me a couple copies of the issue,a nd on the front was a very pretty sunflower piece. finally getting around to it, maybe three years later, lol.

this is the scanned pic from SNG. i changed it around some, as i like to do. i didn’t like the petals at the bottom, i thought they looked all clunky, and i thicken the stem. i enclosed the upper right also, so it is a solid piece. i farted around with adding in some leaves, but it just didnt’ feel right, so i erased them. i thought i had a finished scan of the pattern, but can’t find it on this puter. i’ll put it up when i find it.

going to use translucent glass, three colors for the petals. a bright yellow pebble, a gold, and a dark gold. i considered getting more of the gold for the majority of the petals, instead of the yellow, but money is tight and i have a ton of glass, i don’t need to buy more, and nobody is gonna notice the difference anyway except me. i am using a confetti glass with black streamers and green confetti for the background. been waiting forever to use that glass. i was terrified that it would be a booger to cut, but it turned out it cut quite nicely.

uroboros has some new glass, a combo of confetti and mottles… quite beautiful. very spendy though.

Posted in Cool glass, Patterns

Jellyfishees

•July 19, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Jellies are done!!

This one has seemed like a very long time in the process. Drew the pattern Jan 1-2 on my coastal sabbatical… finished July 19. Certainly one of my more lengthy pieces, especially considering the large tracts of time that i didn’t work on it. there were points where i wondered if it would be done by October, lol! but it is done and i can move on. I feel like i need to move on to a new piece, and not just becasue October will be here before i know it.

i really need to make a light box for photos. i thought i had a good system figured out, but it relies on natural sunlight, and there is an extremely narrow window where it is perfect. and if it’s gloomy, like today… no dice. something with consistent, strong illumination that doesn’t bleach all the subtle colors out. and will illuminate the strong colors, like the caps on the jellies. the glass is a very vivid , rich magenta, similar to the background on wrens ganesha, and it just does not illuminate well in photos.

This is the last piece that my mom is a part of. She saw the pattern, didn’t like my first color scheme, and then went into the hospital. She was alive to see the humpback completed, but not this one. She loved the pattern… I have moved my glass workshop into her bedroom and at a family members suggestion, when it was finished, held it up for her to see. A lot of emotion in this piece, and the room. not sure if the move was the right decision yet.

I had two pieces ready for the show in october. glued the eyeball on the humpback, finally, today. poor guy… he’s been sightless these past few months. the next piece is a sunflower. I want something bright, and i’ve wanted to do a sunflower for quite some time. i copied the fish windsock pattern again also. that one is so popular, i though it would be a good bet to sell at the show. fingers crossed. and it is simple enough that i could make another, or two, before christmas, if the need arose.

Posted in Custom, For Sale

so many changes

•July 7, 2011 • Leave a Comment

this year. it has been a doosy. many many changes. for all kinds of reasons, glass has taken a back seat in my life. i miss it, and i yearn to get back to it. perhaps this month i can. my workspace is in the garage, so weather plays a big part in when i can work. in the winter, with the cold, it is just too damn cold to work that much. i have a warehouse-style propane heater, which works fantastically, but this past winter i had some function issues with it. it seemed like there were more fumes this winter. i know for sure that one of the propane tanks had a leak, i tested it, but after that it seemed like i could still smell the propane. and there was a haze in the air that i hadn’t experienced before. and before you ask, yes i kept a door to the outside open about foot which has been adequate ventilation in the past.

then there is summer. mid june temps hit the high 90’s and ease into the mid 100’s by mid july. it stays blazing hot through august. and i mean blazing. we get probably 20 days over 105 between july and august. probably 30+ days between 100-105 in that time period. september can be super hot too. last september broke all kinds of records. anyway, in the gargage, in summer, you can add another 10-15 degrees to the outside temp. maybe more. sometimes i’ll step out into the garage and it truly feels like stepping into an oven. i had a thermometer out here last summer and one memorable day it was 137 degrees in the garage. it was 117 outside, so…

its difficult to work on glass in that kind of heat. hard to hold on to pieces with sweat slick hands. in the winter, my hands get cold and stiffen up, also making it hard to work the pieces.

i wanted to build a glass shack in my backyard. last year i saved up the money for it, and then needed a root canal. saved some more, sold a piece (or maybe it was a commission, i forget), almost had the money and kia got super sick. bye bye shack. since then i haven’t been able to save, too many things happening needing an infusion of funds. so i tabled it.

the original glass shack, in inglewood

then things changed. my mom passed away. my roommate, after hemming and hawing for a couple months, decided to move into her room. which was fine with me. then, two weeks ago, he announced he was moving out. so now i have two empty bedrooms. i have decided to move my glass workshop into my mom’s room. she was my biggest fan, my most enthusiastic supporter. i think she would be happy with the decision. it’s a good sized room, so i am going to move my computer desk in there too. i’ll put my main work table under the window that looks out into the back yard. maybe the kitties will start going in there again. it is like they are afraid of the space, almost. maybe jadzia will come in an curl up while i work, like she used to. that would be nice. my mom would like that too.

its hard to see her, but she is curled up on the chair, head up-side-down

Posted in Uncategorized

jelly progress

•May 29, 2011 • 2 Comments

yeah!! all the grinding is done!!

the new process of doing all the tiny pieces first is working out really well.

just jellies

the caps are a fucshia, which looks black in the photos. really happy with all the iridescence on the bodies, it looks so pretty.

with teal inserts

i love this teal wave glass. it is old, bought a sheet of it from Makin Glass. it is a total bitch to cut and grind, but worth it. it totally chewed up my grinder head, lol. but it is gorgeous. i’ll use more of it with the mom and baby humpback piece.

with dark water glass

now comes the tedious process of wrapping, or foiling all of it. the cranberry glass is textured with little squares. it won’t be any fun to foil. i have considered getting bit for textured glass, it grinds the surface down a bit so the foil goes on smoothly. with pieces this small though, i was afraid it would grind out too much and the detail would be lost.

so there it is. next post with be of the finished piece. i think i am going to go with silver solder. i don’t see how black would accent anything very well. i’m hoping to get a fucshia wire, 18 or 16 gauge, and add in the streamers. we’ll see how that goes too, lol.

happy Memorial Weekend!!

Posted in Cool glass, Custom, Technique

finally, some progress

•May 22, 2011 • Leave a Comment

have been seriously stumped in the glass working department these days. seems there are so many other projects to get done. good news… all those other projects are done, lol! then i have no urge for glass, and it is no fun when there is no excitement to it.

finally got all the pieces cut last night. for jellyfishees. cut all the odd angle pieces tonight with the taurus saw. that was one of the best investments i ever made. if you are considering it… i say go for it!! haven’t regretted it even once. the blade replacement estimates i think are underrated. i have had mine for two years now and still working with the original blade. am just now noticing some slowing down on the main side i use for cutting. vary up your cutting directionality, go slow with your cutting, don’t force it through, and clean it and let it dry thoroughly before putting away and you will get a ton of use out of the blade. and use the distilled water. makes a huge difference.

i have started using the distilled water in my grinder too. seems to help. the bits are lasting longer. i am also using gel bits. the core is gel instead of a brass core wrapped with the grinding surface. way less vibration, less chipping. i also experimented last project with “rapid” grit grinder bit. LOVE it!! i ended up taking off most of the glass with the rapid bit,a nd then just did a fine pass with the standard bit. very satisfied with that. some glass still chips and needs the fine bit, but if te piece is large enough and you can cover that with the foil, then it is all good. i get the bits on ebay, from apexglassworks: (for some reason the link feature isn’t working tonight, sorry)

http://stores.ebay.com/Apex-GlassWorks/_i.html?_nkw=gel+bits&submit=Search&_sid=17051767

this time i am going to set up a second grinder also. i’ll put the rapid on one, the standard on the other. that way i won’t have to switch bits every time. once the taurus is done being used, i’ll move it and set grinder #2 in its place. i can put the 1/8 bit on one of them also, so that cuts down, too, on switching out that bit.

pretty excited about getting this one going. it has 350 pieces, or something like that, but now that they are all scored and piled up, it doesn’t seem like that is a correct number. hm. i’ll do all the tiny pieces first. get the ucky part over with. considering purchasing a different gripper for te small pieces. but its $20 and who knows if it really will be better? I have this one:

this is the other one:

now that i look at it again, i don’t like it. and its $30, not $20. there is no grippy stuff where you hold the glass… that is lame! ok. just saved $30.

i’ll post some pics tomorrow. the skeeters are driving me crazy tonight, being chased inside.

Posted in Custom, For Sale, Technique

Oi Vey

•April 28, 2011 • Leave a Comment

um. what was i thinking?

tiny pieces. deep into pattern cutting on the jellyfish. what in the name of the baby jesus was i thinking?!?

i counted. there are 80 tiny pieces. 80. tiny. pieces. I haven’t even glued then down yet and i am dreading cutting and grinding them.

had an epiphany on the glass for them though. just sitting at the table, looking out at teh street. had a basket of glass on the table. a couple of amber glue chip pieces were sticking up, taller than the rest. they looked neat, kind of jellyfish-innard-like. i thought i had some in purple… yep. oooh, what is leaning next to the purple glue chip? this glass i thought i would probably never use. it is purple also, though a bit more cranberry than eggplant, and has raised squares all over it. tiny, raised squares. hmmm. held it up to the light, liked the color. held it up next to the fuschia, then the irridy pink… love it!!

because of the texture the pattern has to be affixed to the glass reversed. so i have to redo the 80 pieces i have already cut. <sigh> so, 160 tiny pieces…

it is gonna look bitchin’ though.

Posted in Inspiration, Patterns

jumpstarting the creative process

•April 20, 2011 • 2 Comments

hello strangers. i haven’t written in a month. since before my mom passed away. that was a different lifetime, it seems.

been having some difficulty getting the creative juices flowing. on one hand, i wanted to work with glass, wanted those juices flowing, to feel the excitement. on the other, it seemed like blasphemy. i just couldn’t drum up any enthusiasm for my next project. i thought well, do something else, do the fish windsock or a frog… but the taurus in me said nope, the next project is the jellies and i am not bumping it.

plus, i am over thinking the jellies. i had planned to do them, the three, in pink, peach and lavender. wen i got the glass out i just wasn’t moved by the colors. too bland. then i thought go with fuschia. do the caps in fuschia and the trailers in the pink with the white. so i have been farting around with color combinations for a week. the patern is complicated, and i have been having difficulty making a decision on what color goes where.

i try to do things in a realistic manner. but why? the photos i found have a colored cap with white trailers. boring. tonight i decided to do the trailers in an alternating fucshia/pink… but i still do not love it. i guess i will just let it percolate. maybe i will end up doing just the cap in fucshia, and the rest in the alternating pink and white. it would probably be pretty. gah!!! make up your mind!!!

you cannot force creativity. i know writers say they get writer’s block and they just push through it. but with the glass that isn’t really practical. with writing if you don’t like it, you delete it, your rethink it, and re-write it. with glass… that is a lot of work and glass to try something and then decide you don’t like it. you can do it, but jeez… what a waste.

dunno. need the bug to bite me. and i do not mean a mosquito.

Posted in Inspiration

Photography

•March 23, 2011 • Leave a Comment

I used to fancy myself a photographer. I was told, and I believed, that i had an eye for color and composition.

A beautiful day, driving through a little slice of my heaven.

An exquisite late afternoon, listening to the surf clack.

Photographing my glass can be super challenging. on one hand, the digital revolution is nice because it allows instant access to the photo… no waiting to see if your shutter caught gold. For me though, i feel like i don’t use my digital camera to its best advantage. what I see through the viewfinder is never what is represented on the memory card.

I’ll hang a window, it looks fabulous, colors blazing. i take the photo, download it, look at it; the colors on the monitor are not the colors i saw. or the detail is eliminated. its tough.

take Hawaiian Fling, as an example. first photo, first day. good light.

the body of the whale turns out pretty dang dark.

next day, same placing, bit later in the day.

the background gets blown out, but the body of the whale is illuminated a bit more.

haven’t found the perfect light reflector/transmission vehicle yet, lol. the sheet worked well on ganesha v2, but it was blowing like crazy, and i have to do some contorting to get that rigged. having some mobility issues that made me think contorting was not somethign i should be doing. i had put up a shower curtain as a rain shield, on the side porch. it sounds way more trailer-trashy than it is…

i think the sheet softens, or maybe diffuses is a better word, the light, compared to the shower curtain. eventually, i will contort, and get the sheet up, and take more pics. see if there is a difference. See the rest of the pics here.

For now, i am just going to enjoy this whale. imagine the sheer joy of flinging my giant body up out of it’s natural element… splashing down, feeling the shock and tickle of all those air bubbles bursting against my skin. Sounds delightful.