Lara's Africa Window is a work of art that any glass crafter will appreciate. The window is her own design and incorporates an African landscape with a setting sun contained within the outline of the continent. Lara then went for the home run by surrounding her window with a woven border that contains more pieces than most projects contain in their entirety. Luckily she was able to use a strip cutter for all of those pieces but there was still a lot of time spent grinding and foiling them. The end result is unmistakable and makes Lara's window even that more beautiful.
Let's Magnolia Window sort of proves me wrong since I always say that people focus on the subject matter and not the background glass. Alas, there's an exception to EVERY rule and in this case it's because Let choose such a vibrant and stunning color for her background. Yet somehow it doesn't compete with the flower at all and ends up complimenting it beautifully. Job well done!
This is the first of two completed pieces by Cindy this week. Her Bronkin' Buck Window really came alive and I think that the beauty of the pattern was captured perfectly by her attention to detail. I love everything about this from the design right down to the colors she picked.
Martha's '59 Belair Car Window made it out the door just in time for it to be gifted over the Easter Holiday. Martha knew that this would take patience and time to complete and she stuck to her guns and didn't rush it one bit. All of those thin, long pieces were a chore to cut and grind but soldering them was even more stressful since they were prime to crack due to heat. In the end she did wonderfully and there's not a break in site. I guess you can say that this is faultless.
Jeannette's Shell Window is finished and she's also done an incredible job on her project. I don't believe that I helped her cut a single piece of glass for this which makes me feel both guilty and proud at the same time because I like to help our students whether they need it or not. Here, however, Jeannette has proven herself to be less of a student and more of a stained glass master!
Linda L has soldered the second of her three Nativity Scene Windows and has taken it home so that she can begin the final third panel of this set. Here we see two Wise Men approaching baby Jesus who is in the panel that sits to the right of this window. The third panel will be reside on the extreme right of the set and will be the same size as this one. I suspect that we will see Linda start that one upon her return.
Lara also made a Hoop Project of her own design. A simple outline of the state of Louisiana with St. Mary Parish highlighted with a colorful heart. Lara's eye is always spot on and her decision to NOT make the heart red but rather multi-colored is the defining piece in this design. The contrast against the neutral colored Louisiana is perfection.
Barbara has made Clear Beveled Windows before but this one seemed to go by pretty quickly even for her. This was finished in less than three weeks which means that in terms of class time she's got about eight hours into it. Bevels and clear glass always work well together and Barbara made this even more striking by coloring the lead black.
Jan's completed her Our Lady of Guadalupe Window and the end result was well worth all of the effort she put into making it. It's a complicated pattern whose complexity was raised by the fact that it was reduced in size from the original pattern thus making all of the pieces smaller. For the border and the background that didn't matter much but the pieces that make up Mary herself were now small enough to make cutting and grinding them more of a chore. Alas, Jan handled it all with ease. It's divine.
Cindy also completed her Blue Bonnets Hoop design and again I like her use of colors in this. Rather than staying static with one shade of blue for the flowers, Cindy used two different hues of blues with some off white accents which give the Blue Bonnets an added sense of depth. As for the hoop, well, everything's better with Blue Bonnets on it.
Shelley's American Flag/Rifle Window saw the light of day this week and as I drove by the Ammo Store the other day I couldn't help but notice that it was already hanging up. I guess that means that Shelley has what you'd call a satisfied customer on her hands.
Judy finished her Rectangular Geometric Window. She wanted it to be colorful and that's exactly what she got. Because there were straight lines coming out to the top edge at evenly positioned points of the design she was able to forgo a border and mount the hooks into those straight lines. It's certainly striking, wouldn't you say?
Betty was on fire again this week having completed three separate items. First she finished a Silverware Dragonfly, then there was a Five Beveled Cross Suncatcher and then lastly she put the finishing touches on a Butterfly Suncatcher made of two different clear textures. All are perfect and ready to be purchased!
MiMi's Lighthouse Window got a border this week and that means that when it returns she will add some wire work to it and probably, potentially, most likely, hopefully, have this completed. It's already a work of art but the little extras that MiMi will be adding to this that will surely put it over the top.
Sheri is making her Coffee Window stand out by making the cup out of broken antique blue willow china pieces. This will definitely give it an authentic looking cup! Kudos to her for coming up with a great idea.
Cindy is also hard at work on a second Hoop design which features a Stethoscope. This is essentially complete as it only needs to be attached to the hoop and then colored. Expect to see this finished when Cindy returns in one week.
June loved the Rooster Suncatcher that she made a while back so much that she's making another one now. We've now made an official pattern for this and June is well under way on the cutting process of this piece.
Let was hard at work creating what we are now going to call our 'Scrap Glass Cross'. This pattern uses a lot of different colors in small quantities but the end result is a good sized suncatcher. The beauty of using small assorted colors in that you can use a lot of scrap glass when making this and as you can see, she's moving right along on it.
Susan D's got Four Grinch hands which are now completely ground, foiled and ready for some solder. These are not your standard Grinch Hands as they are about half the size of the original design that you see all over the internet. Although they use less glass they take much more patience to make since you're dealing with extremely tiny pieces. One slip on the grinder can do a lot of damage on a small piece of glass so precision is a must on these.
Melissa's 719 Address Window is all tacked together and ready to be soldered. Again, regular readers of this Blog already know that soldering goes quickly for Melissa so I'm saying that this will be completed very shortly. However, duty calls and Melissa has a Praying Hands Window to make ASAP so this will be put on the back burner for a week or two before she can begin soldering it.
Jeannette has two more Shells in the works but she's doing these as stand alone suncatchers rather than incorporating them into another Seashell Window. She's also got the dove portion of a Dove/Cross Suncatcher cut out so expect to see her complete these possibly as soon as next week.
Finally we look at Susan R's Reindeer which has all been cut, ground and wrapped. Not only that, she's also got the front of this soldered already which means that she'll finish this Reindeer off when she comes back in. She'll be making a few more of these in the weeks to come and I can't help but notice that each one gets completed quicker than the one which preceded it.
And there ya have it. It was quite a productive week in terms of finished projects but it looks as though we will have a few finished things to show off in our next post as well.
Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks
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