Friday, June 3, 2011

These Three Bees

Terry's window is now out and about. Using nothing but clear glass and bevels Terry opted to color the lead black which creates excellent contrast against all the clear for a striking look. Measuring 48 inches wide this isn't a small window by any means. It took a steady hand to make sure everything lined up evenly but she was up for the challenge. Next up for Terry are the 2 companion end pieces that will bookend this window.


Anita's Egret window was another project to walk out the door this week. I think Anita has a thing for feathers because she's got another bird window all lined up to be started next week. She handled the feathers on this window one at a time and found that it wasn't nearly as hard as she had originally thought. Small steps is the key to everything in stained glass.

And Myrt also brought home a window this week. Wow, I just noticed that all of the projects completed this week were done in our Tuesday night class. Myrt's use of bright colors make this a window that's hard to ignore. The antenna on the butterfly was made by tacking on some thin gauge wired after the window was completed. Making actual cuts into the glass to for the antenna would be far too tedious to even consider.

And speaking of moving along, Sonia is making big progress also. Although her window isn't complete (yet) her background is. It was all cut from one sheet of Krinkle Glass so it pretty much just dropped into place and requires barely any grinding at all. With just a border left to cut the hard work on this window IS completed.

Oyster Patty! That's who is making this window. This week she saw her oysters take shape and I think her colors are perfect. She wasn't sure of the colors should have been reversed or not but I think these look better than fine. There will be no mistaking what they are when this window is complete. Hmmmm, suddenly I'm hungry for some crab legs.

Janice managed to get all of her flowers and leaves fitted, and tacked together. She'll be making 3 windows this size with all of the flowers being different colors and in different positions. I'd say its safe to assume that she'll be doing some background work next week and that we'll see some MAJOR progress on this 1st window. Here's the basic layout of this one.

Bonnie has finished cutting all of her ballerina slippers and ribbons and still managed to find the time to begin grinding them. Once these are tacked together she'll cut out the oval background. And then once that's tacked together she'll cut out the rectangular background. It's sort of like working in layers and it's how we make sure that everything lines up perfectly.

Look out! These three Bee's are completed and their hive is just about ready to bee finished as well. Next week Roxie will surround the hive with a thin wire which will be embedded into the soldered edge so you'll never even see it. This will give the hive the strength to hold the 3 bees from small hooks along its bottom edge. Once the hooks are in place she'll just attach the bees with some fishing line and call this another completed project.

Lastly, we have a look at Cindy's newest project. She was waiting for a specific piece of glass to come in for her Boar window and although the glass arrived in time for class we forgot to make sure that Cindy brought her pattern pieces with her. So rather than waste a night Cindy started her next project by designed 3 small windows to be inset into a door. The pattern has a distinct Mission style about it. And talk about a stroke of luck--when the pattern was completed she said that she'd like to put a bevel in the center and wouldn't you know that bevels we happened to have in stock fit in perfectly! Why don't things ever work out that way for me????

That's all the news that's fit to be printed this week during our classes.

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

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