Here or There?
First off, I promise that this is the last time you see the following picture again. This is the third time we're using this cross as a tip of the week but I feel this last one is important. How and where you place your pattern pieces on the glass that you will cut is a very important part of making stained glass. Before you just splay out all of your pattern pieces onto the glass you should consider the shading of the glass you are using and work with it accordingly. When cutting flowers I like to make my stem a little darker than the leaves and look for the darkest section of the green to cut my stem from. In the picture below, the cross was made with just two different colors of glass and a bevel. There's the dark amber color that forms the circle and a piece of tan for the cross itself. The tan had dark streaks throughout so I alternated between the dark and light sections. It may look like there are two different colors in this cross but they all come from the same sheet. You can see where the arrow is pointing that the dark section is giving way to the light section of the glass, but it all works wonderfully this way. By paying attention to shading in the glass that you are cutting from you can give an illusion of added depth that wouldn't occur if you just randomly placed your pieces on the glass.
It is now my pleasure to announce that Paula's New Orleans Scene has been completed and that the end result is easily worth every minute she put into making it. Just look at that cut Paula made for the roof of the building on the left-- and that's just one of the many tough cuts throughout this window that she didn't shy away from. She also has thin strips that are 3/8th's of an inch wide that she's cut perfectly straight countless times. Paula's attention to detail on this is as spectacular as the window is itself.
Always one of my favorite windows, Rowena's version of the Long Tall Iris turned out beautiful as well. Sadly, the colors have washed out in the picture but trust me when I tell you that they are vibrant and most certainly eye catching. Rowena's work is always top notch because this is a flower that 'flows'.
Next we have an oval Iris that Carol made a while back before she took her small leave of absence from us. She's brought it in for a picture and I love it. It has a very spring-like feel about it that I've always found appealing and the oval borders with entwining ribbons have set this off nicely. I honestly don't see what there is to NOT like about this window.
Judy put the finishing touches on her two multi-colored Fish Suncatchers and they've turned out perfect. Her soldering was top of the line on these and when she brought them in all that she needed to do was add two hooks, wash, color, and then use some jewelry glue to affix the eyes. In a few minutes they were set and we took this wonderful picture of her very festive pair of fish.
Christmas is already in season here in the shop because we have quite a few Christmas projects underway. We'll starting off by looking at this Snowman Scene that Betty made. The pattern itself came from a Christmas Card that she received last year which proves that inspiration can come from anywhere. The bands on the three hats were each made from one solid piece of glass that Betty overlaid foil onto to make it look like it's been cut when in reality it hasn't been. This made the bottom snowman's band much easier to accomplish since Betty didn't have to handle 7 quarter inch pieces of glass.
Then have have Barbara's Crab Window which is advancing at a nice rate of speed. With all of the crab ground and almost half of the leaves, Barbara has taken this home so she can wrap her pieces, tack them together and then trace out her background from the actual crab itself. She'll have a perfect fit in no time at all doing things this way and the background will practically fall into place for her.
Becky S has her Eagle/Flag Window all tacked together and is now working on the double borders that will surround it. She has the first thin black border cut and ready to be wrapped which means that we'll she the final border added when Becky comes back in next week. She's leaning towards using blue and I think it will be a perfect color compliment.
By changing just one color in the Stylized Fleur De Lis pattern Ann has changed the entire feel for this window and I love it! The accent color that she's using really speaks to me. Ann's making excellent progress on this and it looks like she'll be starting the Cross Window that she wanted to work on even sooner than she may have expected.
Bonnie is working on a mirror image her Round Cardinal Window but the coloring on this one will be that of a female. She's reversed her pattern and is tracing all of her pattern pieces upside down save for a few textured pieces that she wants to be textured side up. For those she has to trace the pattern onto the glass upside down which is actually right side up and trust me when I say that it gets confusing. But she's got it under control and is grinding what she has cut out now.
Charlie's American Flag Window is all cut out and ground save for its six background pieces. He was very insistent that his flag have furls and this window looks so much better because of those furls. A wonderful job all around if I do say so myself.
Jeannette has been busy, busy, busy! She's spent most of her week making a beveled window AND a Heron Window at the same time. There was a slight mishap with the long thin piece of background in the Heron along his neck but we're going to easily remedy that when she comes back in next week. She'll also get the border attached as well so look out because this bird is about to fly.
Sheri's also been two timing by working on this Dragonfly Window along with her Pig Window (which I can't show you because someone has been peeking at its progress here on the blog). Her background is cut and ground so when she comes back in her Dragonfly will be traced on top of the background and then she'll cut an opening for it to just drop into. And with that it will be a perfect fit all around.
And next up we have Myrt's interpretation of the same design. Myrt's has been stretched out to be double the width and to fill out that extra space she's added more leaves and bubbles as well as some actual sea shells. You can see where those shells will go on the lower left and upper right corners (where they've been penciled in with red ink ).
Terry's latest Flower Window is a tad smaller than her last one and although she's only got one week of work in on it she's already about half way through it. I can't wit to see how far along she'll be on this when she comes back to class because Terry wastes no time at all!
Here at Bayou Salé GlassWorks we've secretly replaced the eyes that Jeanne painstakingly picked out with a pair of baby blue eyes. When Jeanne arrived she was so focused on cutting out new glass that she didn't notice the change until Charlie complimented her on the color of them. Jeanne's face furled (not unlike Charlies flag) and then she said, "Wow, they seem SO MUCH bluer this week!" causing us all to laugh and fess up to what I did. Both sets of eyes are in the picture but Jeanne will be going with the ones that aren't baby blue (and which are the best choice by far).
Lynn M decided to make a Tulip Window and wow is she flying through it!
She's only one night into this and she's already traced out her pattern
and cut out the flowers and the leaves. It may look as though it's
been ground already as well but that's just an example of how exactly
Lynn is cutting on her line while she cuts her glass.
Next we return to Betty who has revived her old but popular Angel Pattern. As it stands, this Angel just needs a border now. She's using a frosted glass for the corners which barely shows at all while it's resting on the paper pattern but those corners are cut and ready to be tacked into place. And that means that this will be needing to be soldered very shortly.
Cindy's yet another student who's celebrating Christmas in July. This elaborate Bell Suncatcher is already well on its way to being done. In another week we'll be seeing this with its border attached and the next thing you know it will be completed.
I wasn't sure if we'd be able to get a channel attached to Tasha's large Fleur De Lis suncatcher but the came bender worked wonderfully and after Tasha got her rounded border attached we were able to get a channel attached to it as well. This is a zinc channel but its much thinner than the one we normally use because there's no way something that thick could be fitted around a 12 inch circle. This window looks great and we'll have it among our completed projects when we return next week.
And Cindy also worked on these Christmas Suncatchers and got them completed before she left for home. These are old standby patterns that always sell and that is exactly what Cindy is hoping for when she takes them to her show in a few months.
I'm missing a picture of Linda F's Window this week-- she has a habit of running projects out to the car before I get my camera focused on them, but when you see it in our next post you'll be amazed at how much work she's accomplished!
Paul
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