love affair with stained glass

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.

Posted in Custom, For Sale

Summer Fling

•March 22, 2011 • Leave a Comment

I have now begun to put my humpback obsession behind me. This has been rattling around in my noggin for months now, maybe a year. Nah, not a year… 6-8 months. i’ll write more later. Just wanted to get it up on the site.

Posted in Custom, For Sale

New soldering technique

•February 17, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Been a busy time for me lately. 2011 has begun with a butt-whipping, lots of health problems, for my mom and myslef. It’s no good. I haven’t had as much time as I would like to be working on glass. Working on the breaching whale. It has been very nice to work on a piece that wasn’t a bunch of little tiny pieces. I purposely made the pieces fairly large, except for maybe 4 of them.

quickie photo from my phone

Tried a new solder technique. I have to thank the ladies at Makin Glass, Kim and Mary, for the tip. In the past, I have bumped all the pieces together and just began soldering. I remember someone telling me long ago, maybe in the first class I took, to spot solder your joints together to hold them into place. I stopped doing that because of how I assemble the thing, it all hold into place, it doesn’t need to be tack soldered, I felt. But I have never been super happy with my soldering. It isn’t smooth, there are lines and ridges, I get melt through… there are several things I am not happy with.

I asked the ladies if they had a soldering class. They asked me specificallyw hat I wanted, I told them the problems that I was having. So Mary at Makin Glass tells me to use 50/50 solder to flat solder the entire piece. That fills it all in with the less expensive solder that melts at a higher temp. Makes sense. Then you go back and add the 60/40 solder to create your rounded top. Sounds simple right? Well shoot… it is. And it works great.

A friend bought me a DVD of professional soldering tips, by Vicki Payne, who is a big name in the industry. I love that they bought me the dvd as a thank you, but wow is it not very useful. Watched the whole thing, learned a couple things. Like that there is a water-based flux! that is so cool! Less corrosive, and you can just rinse it with water, not all the chemical neutralizing stuff. Even after you clean off regular solder, there is still a film or etched area, against the solder. It is small and you really have to look to see it, but it is there. I learned how to fill in large areas of solder, like if you are using glass beads and you have large gaps… anyway, it wasn’t that useful. No close-ups to see her technique, she didn’t explain about the temps at which the assorted solders melted. She did talk about using the iron and temp control, about raising and lowering the temp, and that gave me a couple tips, which i used to goood effect.

Still, instructional dvd’s for this industry really do suck ass. I am going to keep that in mind as I move forward with this. Maybe I can get to a point where I could shoot a video and market it.

(An aside here: it is snowing. This is a rare thing where I live, for it to snow in town. It snows outside of town, and in the very nearby mountains, but for it to snow in town, for any length of time, and for it to stick… awesome. it has been going for about 30 minutes now, and is starting to stick. Big flakes, lots of them… so beautiful. I keep pausing in my typing and just gazing out of the window.)

I have completed one whole side, and just need to finished the other. I will only be using patina on the whale tself, so that part will go fast, then it is just polishing the solder to a high gloss. and she will be done.

I have a client who wants a frog pice for her daughter, for her birthday. I need to figure out if I am actually going to do it. Another previous customer wants a small lampshade. I want to do lampshades for my bedroom, for the reading lights on each side of my bed. The first attempt didn’t go so well, but I had a dream recently, and have an interesting idea for a shade, and I kinda want to work on it… And then there is the jellyfish piece. That one is a monster, and it will take a couple months to do. So maybe I will do the frog and lampshades first.

ok, enough lollygagging around. need to get int he shower and go run errands, do stuff for work… the chores never ever cease.

Posted in Technique

Drawing is fun

•February 1, 2011 • Leave a Comment

The retreat at the cabin was blissful. Too short, but blissful nonetheless.

The cabin had these huge windows, 5×5 maybe. The days were sunny, and the light glorious. I hunted through books and printed then traced, enlarged, sketched, and generally had a glorious time.

The piece I was super excited about was the octopus. Sadly, I just couldn’t get anything on paper that I really liked. I ended up with one sketch, but realized that in order to make it as detailed as I wanted, it would have to be HUGE. All those suckers and swirling arms… It defeated me, for now. Not ready to work on a 500 piece window.

Very happy with the breaching whale. I wanted something fluid and curving and joyful. I think I got it.

humpback watermark

hm. supposed to be a photo. trying out the watermark thing. haven’t quite gotten the hang of it yet. oh, i know. let’s try this:

breaching whale

there we go!! Its all cut and ground and fitted together now. The water I did in a sapphire blue streaky, teal streaky and a milky seafoam green/ cream/white textured glass. The whale is grey, and his underbelly is a mottled white and grey. As usual, I cannot wait to see it up and lit. But will have to. Too many things going on. Probably have it done in another couple weeks.

The jellyfish turned out awesome, too. Really really happy with it. It’ll be a monster, lots of little pieces, x3, cuz there are three jellyfish… but they will be gorgeous when done.

Jellies

Going to use a pale irridescent pink, peach, and pink/purple for caps and inner bits. I have super pale transluscents for the fill. Purchased some great textured glass for the background. Teals and blues again, with bubbles and waves. I’ll do the patinas in multiple shades again, to accent the trailing lines.

The last whale piece isn’t quite finished. Needs refining. It is more realistic, and the aspect is from below, the whale is heading to the surface. I have this great glass, at least 35 years old, that I got from a neighbor when he moved. He said his mom did stained glass before she died. the glass was in a little hardsided case, all covered with dust. She passed 35 years ago, so it is at least that old. A dark grey with white, I think it will be gorgeous. I even had the local glass shop make me some warty bits to glue on the surface, to mimic the bumps along the snout and mouth of the whale. Going with a teal gluechip for the background, all one color. Going to try for a cool effect with this one. The top couple inches of the piece will represent the surface water, and I want it to look like it does when you see a film of a whale int he water. The last couple feet are churning, and multicolored and textured. So I am going to use several different colors and textures for that part. I hope to get a medalion (sp?) of a wave too, but the company is out of them, and doesn’t know if they will get any more in. Will have to wait and see.

All in all, I am super pleased with the quiet cottage getaway. If you are looking for a little place on the coast of menodcino… check it out!

Posted in Inspiration, Patterns

The New Year

•December 30, 2010 • Leave a Comment

What is it about the end of the year that causes it to become so dang frantic?? Those last 6 weeks go by in an ever-increasing blur and bang! its the new year!

More and more consistently, I feel as though I am only hanging on by my fingernails. It’s rather disheartening. That is all the complaining that I am going to do though, lol.

For New Years, i decided to treat myslef to a little getaway. And really, to say that I am treating myslef is not really indicative of what I am doing. I am recharging my batteries. I am going someplace where my every waking second isn’t taken up by somebody needing something from me. I have no idea how people with lots of children, or heck, even one child, do it.

I have rented a little cabin on the coast, in Mendocino. Little town called Albion. Neat little cabin, in a neighborhood, but it is the woods too. the owners are gone, so i will have the whole place to myself. I am bringing only my art supplies, my computer, a couple books, food, and 7 bottles of wine. gonna reacquaint myself with wine. I will be gone for two whole days. cannot wait.

I have had these ideas for patterns spinning around in my head for some time; weeks. I will finally get them on paper. I want to do a humpback whale, jellyfish, and an octopus. I am excited about all of them, but particularly the octopus. I envision masses of long, curling tentacles with suckers on them… in dappled oranges with lavender undertones. maybe do some other sea life in the background. Some coral and fishes, maybe a tiny seahorse or two.

I ‘ve been thinking about a lion and lamb piece too, but that is for another day. I’ll be near the coast, so sea life it is. I’ll post the results soon.

Posted in Inspiration, Patterns

Christmas pieces done by the skin of my teeth

•December 29, 2010 • 2 Comments

that is a somewhat disgusting turn of phrase, when you look at it, lol.

Had two pieces for Christmas. The first one was a rehash of my Dragonflies in Grass piece. I made some changes to the pattern; added some additional grass stems, and veining to the wings of the dragonflies.Very pleased with the results:

I covered the wings with flat foil and then drew the lines for the veins with a stylus. Then I used an exacto knife to cut away the open spaces, then foiled the outside. Very happy with the completed piece.

The second piece was for the same client. Piece for her sister, who has 2 chocolate labs. She sent me three camera phone photos (not ideal), and the instructions: “they have a pool in the backyard, with a garden and sunflowers”.

She did add “anything you do will be fine” which is wonderful. Still, I farted around with the pattern for a while, too long really. Finally settled on something. Then had trouble finding true chocolate brown glass. It doesn’t exist. All the dark brown glass I found showed amber with the light through it. You work with what you have though, so I got going, and completed it the night of the 22nd. Whew!

Because of when I completed it, I didn’t have many options for shooting it. Had to do it in the morning, with poor light. And of course I was running late and didn’t have time to get the white back panel in place.

I think I am done with dogs for a while.

Going to spend some time doing pattern work. I have some ideas for an underwater series. Humpback whale, jellyfish and octopus. Then the other day I thought maybe I wuold embrace the local churchy folk and do a religion themed piece. When I was a picture framer, we had a print of a lion and lamb lying down together in a field. it was a gorgeous piece. I think I might duplicate it in a window. Going away for a couple days, a little cabin on the coast. going to drink wine and draw. then back to the real world.

Happy New Year to you all!

Posted in Commissions, dragonflies

one down, one to go

•December 3, 2010 • Leave a Comment

i’ll write more later, ok? just wanted to get this up:

Posted in Uncategorized

All done, gone bye-bye

•November 28, 2010 • Leave a Comment

Here’s my beauty…the page is tweaking, go here to read the full post.

Posted in Cool glass, Custom, Inspiration

impatience

•November 9, 2010 • Leave a Comment

I am impatient. I have always owned up to it. Patience is not my thing. The anticipation of a thing builds up, like a tornado or hurricane gaining momentum, until I am ready to explode.

This is the state that I currently find myself in. When it gets bad, like it is now, the desire invades every part of my life. My waking hours, my sleeping hours. Everybody has expereinced it to a certain degree. You should be paying attention to the meeting, but your mind is occupied with your upcoming vacation, or whatever it is you are anticipating.

This time, for me, it is Thanksgiving that I am anticipating. Not because of delicious food, though that is something certainly worthy of anticipation. On that day, I am giving a gift. I am driving down to Auburn to meet a friend and hand over her birthday present; Wren’s Ganesha.

She hasn’t seen it yet. I have sent her teasers. The pattern; a stack of cut glass; a small section of the ground pieces, assembled; a long slice of the completed piece, in mediocre lighting. I can’t post anything until she has seen it. It is driving me nuts!!

Enough to whet her appetite, but not enough to give it all away.

I cannot wait for Thanksgiving. I cannot wait for her to see it. She will gasp, she will squeal. I am sincerely hoping that she will crap her pants, cuz this is the most outstanding piece that I have done. Hands down. He is gorgeous.

Two Weeks and one day to go. Wish me luck.

Posted in Cool glass

Slow going

•October 5, 2010 • Leave a Comment

Work schedule hasn’t permitted me much time to work on glass, alas. But I squeeze it in here and there. Wren’s Ganesha is coming along very nicely. I can’t post any photos, cuz she reads this and I do not want her to see it before it is done. I’ll have it done by the end of the month, and will meet her in Auburn at Thanksgiving to hand over. Can’t wait to see her face. I hope she craps her pants. LOL! That is the desired response.

I was going through my delphiglass catalog, just looking and I found some glass paints that come in a needle-point applicator, and you bake them to make them permanent. Went to the local Micaels, and yippee! they had them (for $2 less per tube, I might add).

apparently, i cannot include a link here, so go to http://www.cheapjoes.com and type in pebeo vitrea outliners, to see what i am talking about. i drew some designs last night. It needs to cure for 24 hours before baking, so will be able to that tonight. Will let you know how it goes.

Very excited about the possibilites. I need to draw on Ganesha face and the henna design along his trunk. I was also considering using an etching cream to etch my name in the piece, but maybe i will do it with the paint. The etching would be more subtle, though… dunno. Will have to see. I usually do details like creases in arms and hands with the copper foil overlay, but unless it is attached at both ends, it has a tendency to peel up when the solder is applied. With the paints… I could just paint them on. Can’t wait.