End of Summer

•August 10, 2010 • Leave a Comment

Really must post more often. Got busy though, with life, new jobs, household stuff. Just life, man, you dig? LOL.

Last we met, I was about to begin my lampshade project. I am done with i t now. I only made one. I only plan to make one. I remember, before I started, looking over the pattern page. At the top it has a difficulty scale; 1 through 5. The shade I picked was a 4. I really didn’t see what was so complicated about it; 6 panels, 3 pieces per panel, 6 joiner pieces… how hard could it be? Turns out… It could be really f**king hard. Like a 4 out of 5 level hard. Live and learn, right? It’s pretty though…

One major mistake: didn’t know to take into consideration the width of the lamp harp when planning the size of this project. I just made it a size that looked like it would cover the bulb and that was all. The harp is too wide, so the lamp won’t sit down onto the threaded bolt at the top, the bolt the finial screws on to, which in turn secures the shade to the lamp. <sigh> I ordered little “risers” to fill up the space. The threads on the risers don’t match the threads on the harp. Really ridiculous.

I have decided to abandon this shape. I am going to revert to a basic 4 sided box type lamp shade. same colors, similar design, easier to work with. Once it is on the lamp, I will be just as happy with it. So there. I will probably list this one on etsy or ebay.

I have begun Wrens Ganesha.

It has ended up being quite large… 28×32 or something thereabouts. I need to find a coloring medium which allows me to play with color and then color it in, without saturating the paper with water. The paper I use for pattern making is too thin to stand u to much liquid. I thought about chalk, but I think that would be messy. Maybe I should ask Jake. He has used several types of paint/chalk/pastels. See what he thinks.

This guy is gonna be a blast of color. A blast. The perosn I am doing this for is not like me, color-wise, she’s not subtle, she’s not soft and rainbow-y. She is bold and strong, with a spice of darkness. So… Ganesha will be too. It is actually fun to go wild with strong colors on this. Sapphire blue, pumpkin orangel, vivid yellow, mottled yellow/orange/red, blood-red, dark dark teal, deep, streaky purple, olive green. I have thorwn some light colors in, here and there, for contrast or for edging. The lotus blossoms, of course are a pale pink, the pedestal is irridescent white. I’m undecided on the body color. Or, really, I should say I have changed my mind on the body color. Initially, I had selected a semi-opaque white/grey/pinkish lavender blend for the body. Then I thought maybe it was too pale, and I got excited about an artique glass I saw in a medium grey. But now, looking at the grey, I don’t like it. I think it will be too blah. The starburst background will be a magenta color, really bold and strong. the orginal baody glass will look lovely with it, and the magenta should pull out the deeper tones. Ok, I guess I have talked myslef back into the orignial color.

Still  undecided on the glow. My mom says yellow. The only yellows that I have are vivid, almost nauseatingly so. Not sure how that will look with the magenta background. Or all the gold in the crown. Almost the entire crown in gold colored glass, except for the two largest pieces,which are blood red. I cannot use white for the glow; too close in color to the body. Dunno. I guess I will wait and see.

Patterns are all cut out and pasted to the glass, with the exception of the body and the glow. A lot of different glass colors. The most variety I have used so far, I believe. Can’t wait to see it emerge.

Posted in Custom

Long time no post.

•May 15, 2010 • Leave a Comment

I’m not even sure when the last post was… New Year’s I think. Nuts…

Ok, I went back and read what I had last written. I shipped out the entertainment center door to the lady, insured. Which is a great thing because they broke it. yep. Thank you, UPS. I had packed it really well, too, three inches of foam wrapped around it, double cardboard sandwich. It was tough. The box looked like something was dropped on it, and it punched a hole through and broke one of the pieces. The lady opted not to repair it, just take the cash and use it as it was.

I did a craft fair set up by a local group of ladies who have stuff for sale on etsy.com. it is a local handmade group. I took several small pieces in and had a tiny table. I t was fun, there was a good turnout, and i talked to lots of people.

I ended up getting a commission form that show, a small piece, a pair of hands holding a heart with rainbows coming out of it. It was very sweet, and the client loved it. I haven’t heard back from her, so I hope the person that received it as a present enjoyed it as much as the client did.

I finally got the hummer piece repaired, and installed in the door. the photos don’t look great, the lighting isn’t fantastic from inside, and when I tried to take them fro outside, I just got a bunch of reflection from the outside glass.

la la la la la

I’ll try for better photos another day.

I was glass-project free for a month or so. Did some other organizing and clearing out of stuff. I went through all my pattern books and set aside the books that I am not interested in. I think I might put them up on ebay. I don’t know, maybe try CL first.

Finally decided to do the lampshades for my bedside lamps. I wanted to use a marbled white for the majority of them, and a couple of teals for accents. Turns out that I don’t have any simple white glass. well, no amount large enough to do two four-sided shades. I went to my local glass supplier. They didn’t have anything other than opaque white. Which won’t work… I need light to pass through, I need semi-opaque. And she said they just got in a big glass order, and wouldn’t be ordering anytime soon. Boo.

I went online to Delphi… they are haivng a glass sale. Sweet! I picked out $100 worth and clicked on :shipping charges”. Yikes!!! $80 to box and ship it. Ok, not doing that. The closest glass shop is in Chico, and they specialize in hot glass, kiln glass and beads and that kind of thing. They said they had a small selection of glass for stained glass. I can use kiln-appropriate glass, it all comes in sheets, but it is more expensive because it has stuff in it to facilitate the melting process.

I thought about going to the place I used to go to in Redondo, when I lived in LA. I am heading to LA for work in a couple weeks, and will have some extra time. But then I have to deal with carrying it back on the plane with me. Grrr!!

Ultimately, I found a place in Sacramento. Outside Sac actually, another 20  minutes or so east. They are having a 50% off sale online. I emailed the guy and asked if I could buy it online and pick it up to save shipping and breakage. He said just come on in and hand pick it, as long as you buy 12 sq feet (which is the same as the internet requirement), I’ll give you the half off. That’s fantastic!! I get to select the pieces I want, and save some mooolah. So I will be doing that on my way home form LA/Sac. I might take the long way and swing through chico and check out the one shop there. at least then i would know what they have, and not make a trip that turns out to be a disappointment.

All worked up to do glass and no projects leads to finally getting started on something i promised about 7 months ago. A very good friend turned 40 last year. She loves dragonflies. I decided to give her the gift of a piece of glass art, and let her choose the subject matter. I was positive she would choose dragonflies, and had already begun to design in my head. No sooner were the words out of my mouth, she hollered “GANESH!!!”  My jaw dropped, and crickets could be heard.

Holy balls, Batman!! Ganesh!! This is Ganesh:

wow, not what i had in mind, but a god excuse to do another ganesh, right? i have this cool sgriffito tile that i picked up on Abbott Kinney, of Ganesha. Did a rubbing, cleaned it up and came up with this:

soooo, this will be the basis for her piece. should be interesting. I’ll keep you updated on the progress. I’, going to do the lampshades too, it’ll all be happening together. Ta!

Posted in Custom, Inspiration, Patterns

And a happy new year to all!!

•January 4, 2010 • 1 Comment

The last two months of 2009 were a mad-glass-dash. I had 6 pieces to coomplete for christmas, and at the very last minute (like, on the 22nd of Dec.), I added one more quickie suncatcher.

First off, I had this photo to turn into a glass window:

MoJo doggie

I scanned it, printed it really lightly and then traced over it to get the pattern. It was a ton of work. At some point I realized that there was no way to do the image, as it appears above, and keep it to a 12×18 size. I experimented some more, and finally came up with a design that went in tight on the dog in the tub, and was 22×22. I just couldn’t get the detail I wanted having it any smaller. I ended up sketching in a background of grass, sky and a fence rail. the piece itself went fairly quickly, three weeks, once I had the pattern finalized.

MoJo completed

The next 5 pieces were all butterflies, and were to be gifts from a client for her co-workers. The camera was screwy so the photos didn’t turn out. So I have no shots of those.

The last minute piece was a frog suncatcher. I got back from working in LA, on Tuesday night. I thougth I had tues night and weds night to complete it. After touching base with the lady, it turned out that they were leaving weds day to drive down to the familys. I flat out told her I couldn’t get it done in one day. I kept working on it however, and it was going well, so I decided to try to get it done that night. Five hours later, I called her and told her Froggy was completed. He turned out great, I kinda wanted to keep him.

Froggy, frontlit

Froggy, backlit

I used an existing pattern for a fan lamp. I changed the shape of his bottom, and changed the feet. The original feet were just blobs, I wanted froggy feet. Oh, and I added the orange jewel blobs to his eyes. The original pattern just had the giant white circles. Kind of creepy. I like that he turned out a bit cross-eyed.

Last but not least, the glass door repair. This poor lady has been waiting for this for ages. She shipped it to me just after I agreed to do the Christmas commissions. Finally opened the box on New Years Day. It is an insert in a wooden frame door on an entertainment center. I haven’t done anything like it before, and it is proving to be a challenge. It has this weird brass came, that is lines with thin foam to cushion. The glass is clear, and the piece is soldered only at the point were two or more pieces come together. I’m having to make patterns from scratch and figure out how to replace the broken pieces without taking apart the entire thing. I need wicking to remove the old solder, and my supply place took a week off for New year’s… I hate waiting. I am so impatient. Still, even after all the lessons I have had on patience.

whole door, prior to glass removal

and here is a photo of my finger after scoring and removing all the glass… it doesn’t happen often.

Bleeder!!

That’s all for now. Check back soon!

Posted in Butterflies, Commissions, Custom, Patterns, SunCatchers

Catastrophe

•November 4, 2009 • 1 Comment

<sigh> What a week it has been. Just and all round booger of a week.

I finally finished the Gabriel’s Trumpets piece, which I have been calling “hummers”, because it is so much easier.

Gabriel's Trumpets with Hummingbirds

I patina’d the flowers copper, and the rest of the piece black. I had a little problem with impurities leaking out of my solder. The solder is old, and discolored, and I cleaned it before I used it, but not well enough. Even after the patina was on, I had some mold bleed through. What to do, what to do? I went through one of my teaching books, and found the solution for polishing patina. Plain old liquid car wax.

It does take the black off a tad, leaving the metal more charcoal, with a hint of brown. And it gets super shiny, so you need to  like that look. The book said to use red jewelers rouge for the copper patina, but I couldn’t find any of that, so I just used the Zymol polish, and it seems to have worked very well. The best part? It polishes off all the mold spots that has leaked out.

Closeup of trumpets

I took it to work, to put in the door. The pattern had shifted a bit when I was doing it, so the size was just a 1/16′ too big, along one side. BOOOOO! I was going to need to bring a sanding block in and sand one side of the window down to allow it to fit. Fine, dang it!

I leaned the piece up against my desk.

Hours later, I was working on one client and my next client came in. She didn’t want to infringe on the current clients time (i think), so she asked if she could sit at my desk. I said sure. When it was her turn for services, she stood up and did something (don’t know what, my back was turned) and I heard Whump!!! What the hell was that? and turned around and there was the hummer piece, laying flat on the floor.

For a second I actually thought that it hadn’t broken. That proved to be a false hope, of course… you can’t blame a girl for hoping. My client was beside herself, blaming herself and apologizing. While a little tiny bit of blame goes to her, the vast majority of it goes to me, for placing the piece in such a vulnerable position.

cracks

There they are, the cracks. the two dark, thin lines going from the tips of the hummers wings, are not cracks. I was trying to figure out how to salvage some of the glass, but after playing with it a tad, I don’t think I can. All the large pieces will have to be replaced. What a pain in the ass. The hummers are going to be dangling free while I try to do this. I am still mulling the process over in my mind. I am having trouble getting over the fact that it will probably take me another 20 hours of work to fix it. Stupid, stupid me.

hummingbird and flower

I am going to move on to the christmas orders. Get those done. Then there is Renee’s Ganesha, though there is no deadline for that. I might want to do a little something, something after the christmas projects. Oh, I have that cabinet door to repair, too. Humph. This is starting to look a lot like work…

On we go though, moving forward. I will try to learn something from this. Take better care of the piece!!! Hopefully, I will not have another instance like this. Though honestly, over the course of years, there are bound to be some screw-ups and breakage. Time to hit the shower and get ready for work. Have a great day everyone!

Posted in Custom, Flowers, Uncategorized

Gabriel’s Trumpets with Hummingbirds

•September 14, 2009 • Leave a Comment

On to the next project. Red Bluff is having an Art Walk in November, and I am trying to get a couple of large pieces done by then. A couple friends who own and work at a neighboring day spa have offered to hang some pieces in the spa, during the Art Walk. They have some lovely windows, which I lack in my space, so I am going to take them up on it.

This is the next piece:

in progress gabriel's trumpet full

Doesn’t look like much at this point, but it will be rockin’ when I am done. I am using a pattern out of a book called Stained Glass Classroom. The original pattern doesn’t have the hummingbirds in it, I added them in. I plan on putting this in the window of my front door at The Spa Downstairs. It’s a big window 24×32. The pattern was originally intended as a decoration inside a home, an accent for a doorway from, say, the dining room to the living room. For the purposes of my front door, I didn’t want to have this gigantic piece of glass at the bottom, so decided to break it up. Hummingbirds have lots of little pieces, grrr!

in progress hummer

I am currently in love with the mottled glass I am using for the flowers. A gorgeous white/orange/yellow with some rings. I used it recently in a lotus piece and was so delighted with it, I changed from cranberry to the mottled for the flowers. And honestly, the cranberry glass I have isn’t deep enough in color. I envisioned a deep cranberry, bordering on fuschia, but the cranberry I have is watered down, and the color isn’t consisent, either, it wavers. No good.

I made some other changes to the pattern. The original has a really terrible butterfly hidden in one corner, so out that went. I filled that in with leaves. I also added some umph to s couple of the flowers, at the bottoms. They were a tad puny, and with all the green, they were a bit overwhelmed. Now all the flowers are in full bloom, with exhuberant curling petals. Can’t wait to see it done.

in progress gabriel's trumpet flower

Sometimes I wish I hadn’t sold the kiln. It would be super cool, I think, to put the pieces all together and fire them, fuse them together. Don’t know if you can actually do that, or if it would hold together, but in my mind it works great!

I’ll post more as I go along. Thanks for reading.

Posted in Cool glass, Flowers, For Sale, Patterns

Did it!

•August 10, 2009 • Leave a Comment

turtle head cutIt was a pain, as I foresaw, but not too bad. Most of the problem was because I didn’t wait long enough after gluing the pattern down. The glue hadn’t dried completely, so when I cut it, it was flooded with water from the saw, and the patterns loosened. The Taurus Ring Saw is fantastic, but it is very wet, and very chip-y. My hands are completely covered in glass bits and chips, and soaking wet, when I finish. The glass bits area problem, all over my hands. You can’t just brush them off, they need to be rinsed of. For that, I have to go into the house. I grabbed the doorknob, and had several pieces of glass insert themselves into my skin. Not fun. I bleed for my art!!

I experimented with gloves when I did the turtle head. The tight ones. Worked out much better than I anticipated. I had thought that they would get all sliced up, but they didn’t. So that I great.

One drawback with the ring saw is this. If you paste the pattern on, and then just cut it out with the saw, you loose a bit more glass than is ideal. I like my pieces nice and tight after I cut them, with just enough of a gap for the foil. I know that it is overly particular of me, but what can I say? I’m particular. You can see in the photo above how there is quite a bit of space between the pieces. When I did the shell, I just pasted the entire pattern to the glass and then used the saw to cut out the individual pieces. I ended up with a 1/4″ gap in the whole shell, when it was all said and done. Totally unacceptable. I was hoping to save a bit of time by using that method, but no dice.

With the turtle head, I clumped a few pieces together, strategically, and then cut them out. I will use foil overlays to mimic a solder line. That is what the black lines are on the pieces.

turtle foot with overlay marks

I did the same thing on the larger flippers, to very good effect.

turtle fin with overlay

Wow. That came out big. Oops. The only drawback of this method is that I am too lazy to do the backside, so the piece ends up being one-sided. With this turtle, it isn’t as much of an issue because the shell pattern looks like hell ont he back, so it really should be viewed from only the one side.

Ok, that’s it for tonight folks. Have a great one!

Posted in Turtle

What was I thinking?

•August 6, 2009 • Leave a Comment

turtle head

I am dreading this. Absolutely frakking dreading it. I do not know what I was thinking…

Well, yes I do. I was thinking of how pretty the shell was going to look… not what a nightmare it was going to be to cut and grind all the itsy-bitsy, tiny pieces for the head. Gah!

I contemplated doing an overlay. But I think the chances of one of the little bits tearing is too high. When I did the butterfly overlay, there were large areas of the copper foil intact. With this piece, it would be more like a spider-web, just the outline. Maybe I’ll clump some of the pieces together and do single line overlays… that’s not a bad idea.

Wish me luck!

Posted in Turtle, Uncategorized

It has been a while.

•August 2, 2009 • Leave a Comment

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

Gorgeous, discontinued, green mottled


close-up of part I will use for shell

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?

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!

good use of glass

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.

Posted in Cool glass, Patterns

I did not fall off the end of the Earth

•May 23, 2009 • Leave a Comment

Wow! It’s been a month since I posted here. Sorry. It isn’t that I haven’t been working glass, but rather that time is passing by more swiftly.

I finished two of the pieces I had set up, for Etsy: Dragonflies in Grass, and Lotus.

 

 

Dragonflies in Grass

Dragonflies in Grass

 

Lotus

Lotus

I am very happy with both pieces. And someone out there was happy with Lotus, because it sold. Yippee!!! I haven’t made the butterfly and flower piece yet, and probably won’t for a few weeks. I want to do a couple more lotus pieces, and see what happens with them. I went tame on the colors for the original, a frosty white for the blossom and a gorgeous sapphire blue for the background, but now I want to get a little crazy and see what happens. I have a gorgeous speckle glass that i bought from John at Glass Addict when he was closing, full of fiery reds and yellows and oranges, set in an opaque white. I want to try that for the back ground. The trick, of course, is to ensure that the background doesn’t over whelm the blossom, so I need to play with that some more. I would love to use a bold red for the blossom, but don’t know if that will go over well. i’ll lay everything out on the light table and see how it looks.

I was culling trough some of the many many pattern books that I have, trying to thin out the bulk. Not really into the cutsey suncatchers… the bunnies and birds and vegetables. While I was looking, I found a nice simple tulip window, half-fan, that has great lines. It looks like a classic piece from the nineteenth century, and caught my interest, so I have been working on that. Initially I thought I would put it up for sale, but my mom is in raptures over it, so maybe it will go to her for a belated mom’s day gift. Since I wasn’t even in town for that, nor did I get her a present or card. I did give her a hug and tell her that I loved her before I left =) She seemed very pleased with that.

Ok, off to the couch. I am in the mood for a movie. Hoping to catch some Star Trek and Terminator at the big screen this weekend. After I do some serious yard work, that is. My yard is the second-worst looking yard on the block. That’s pretty bad…

Posted in dragonflies, For Sale

Aaaahhhh… published!

•April 28, 2009 • 4 Comments

A year or so ago, I sent in a photo of Ganesha to Delphi Glass‘s annual contest. Didn’t even get an honorable mention. Looking at the efforts that won awards, or at least recognition is the honorable mention category, I decided that awards were for insecure people looking for fame… or some such shit designed to assuage the crushing loss I felt over not being chosen.

I kind of soured on “award” things for a while. (Honestly though, now that I look back at the winner, the stained glass winners are pretty fabulous. The mosaic winners are beyond belief.)

On a whim, I sent in a photo of Ganesha to another publication, Stained Glass News. And promptly forgot about it.

Stained Glass News is a very cool little paper, free from your local glass retailer. There are all kinds of helpful hints in it, interesting advertisements, and lots and lots of advice from experts. Most of the newsletter is interactive in that people write in questions and experts answer them in the newsletter. Anther thing I like is that each month they picture someone’s home workshop. I have gotten some great ideas from those photos.

A week ago I received an email saying that they needed my mailing address, they were putting my picture in an issue and wanted to mail me a couple copies.

So…abso*frakkin*lutely… cool!!!

 

cover...

cover...

 

... ta-DA!!! there I am, #6.

... ta-DA!!! there I am, #6.

They even spelled my name correctly!!  Total bragging rights, very very excited.

Posted in Cool glass, Inspiration

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