Never Adjust Before You Flux

Two weeks ago I promised a detailed look at how Jeannette cut out the sky in her first Shrimp Boat Window and this week I'm going to deliver on that promise.  Below is the finished window which I'm re-posting so you can see how the sky's pattern is maintained to give the illusion that the boat and its rigging is sitting in front of the sky.  To create this effect, Jeannette started with one piece of sky blue glass that she set her cut and ground boat and clouds on top of.  She then traced around them with her fine point marker.  After adding in the rigging lines she then carefully picked each cut until she had the sky disassemble.  When everything was wrapped and soldered the sky flowed seamlessly behind the boat.  Jeannette had to jump around a bit while cutting but the end result is worth it.

So here's how it was done.  The only difficult cut in the entire window was the first one which resides on the bottom right.  It involved a sharp right angle and you can see that a cloud was placed there to help cover what would have been a lead line that had nothing to do with the boat.  Cloud placement in this window wasn't random-- it was well thought out to enable us to cut the sky without having any extra lead lines which would destroy the effect of the rigging lines.  Watch the image below and you'll see in what order each cut was made and how easy it is to do. Well, after that first cut was completed.

So with that out of the way, let's get on to our new finished windows this week.  Brenda came in and the first thing we noticed was that she had changed her ribbon border from a flat, somewhat boring cream colored glass to this beautiful demure yellow glass that matched the accent pieces in the Iris.  Changing those pieces meant that Brenda had to re-cut and re-grind sixteen pieces of glass but the end effect was well worth it.  Brenda also added more leaves to this design which I think work really well.  All in all, I have to say that Brenda pretty much nailed it with this window.

 

Jane's Geometric window got finished so quickly I barely recall seeing it get started last week!  One of Jane's trademark design features is her use of color. She likes to find a piece of glass with two colors in it and then use the two colors separately throughout the window as well.  You can see how she uses this talent by noticing the color of her curved inner border which is a combination of champagne and blue colors.  For her background Jane used a straight up champagne, and for her final border she used blue glass which both tie in perfectly with the inner border.  Perfection! 

 

Ann's first of three Fleur De Initial Windows is completed and headed home.  That just leaves two more to go and one of them just needs to be washed and colored.  We'll certainly see Ann's final two windows in our next update.

 

Linda F completed her tastefully elegant Angel Window this week and I think I've summed it up nicely already.  I see a huge difference in Linda's soldering abilities and I have to say that she seems to have gotten it.  There was little for me to do on this window in terms of touch ups so all I ended up doing was adding some hooks to hang it by. 

 

And this is Carol's first Lawn Ornament and she had so much fun making it that she's started working on a second one (but of a different variety.)  The angled wings are what make this Butterfly so appealing  and Carol was amazed at how easy it was to achieve that effect.  And that's not all-- just wait until you see how far she's along on her next lawn ornament project.

Linda L wrapped up work on the remainder of her eight Heart Mirrors and she's done a wonderful job on them all.  She's got a lot of mirror work under her belt and now knows exactly how to wash mirror with a minimal amount of water while still doing a thorough job.  Practice makes perfect and these last four hearts prove it.

Terry's Chitamacha Window is looking great even if Terry isn't thrilled about working with all of those tiny pieces.  She's currently working on the four feathers that hang from the bottom and then all that will be left are the double borders.  I think that when this is completed Terry will be quite proud of herself (which she should be!)

  

Susan has all of the glass cut for her 'M' Window and I was pleased to see her decided to use two solid pieces of background glass without feeling the need to run a lead line through the center.  Yes, you can see a line in the picture but that's on the pattern and not cut into the glass itself.  Now that her border is cut and ground I'd say that it's safe to assume that Susan will be soldering this when she comes back in.

 

Betty has completed all of the glass cutting on her Round Magnolia Window.  Luck was with us because I had formed a round frame out of zinc channel about a year ago that turned out to be too small for the window I made it for.  I hung that frame on the wall figuring that one day I'd find a window it would fit and this past Wednesday was that day (or should I say night?)  It was a perfect fit.   I love the yellow border and think that when this is lit up Betty will be very impressed with her project.

  

And here's a look at the newest Lawn Ornament that Carol has started.  This Bee is all ready to be soldered and just wait until you see how it's soldered together.  The wings will be curved AND the body itself will curve as well.  It doesn't sound like much but trust me, when you see this completed next week you'll want one yourself!  For some reason the picture of this makes it look somewhat small but it's actually 12 inches wide.   Next I need to draw up a 3D rose pattern for all of our Lawn Ornament makers.

Becky S is working on a number of picture frames but it appears that I forgot to take a picture of the three that were sitting on the other table.   This has been a learning experience for Becky in seeing how the frames are actually ssembled.   Once you do one you get the idea pretty quickly but until you see how everything relates to other sections of the frame it can be confusing.  But these look wonderful already and Becky is making fast work of this project.

 

Cindy is working on two of these Corner Pieces at once and grinding her pieces as she goes along.  She's always said that small pieces don't concern her and this proves that they certainly don't.  What impressed me were the 4 small round, red circles that accent the center clear section of this piece.  Why?  Because Cindy has 8 perfect circles that measure well under a half inch in diameter.  That is no small feat (no pun intended).

 

Jeanne has the front side of her Stylized Cross window all soldered and what a job she's done on it.  Nice smooth lead lines are a hallmark of good stained glass and this window is a perfect example of clean lines.  She's in the process of soldering the back side now and when she comes back in she plans on giving it one more touch up before she colors this and calls it complete.

 

Our students soldering this week has really impressed me and I have to say the job that Shelley is doing on her Mermaid Window is astoundingly professional.   Shelley has come so far since the day she first walked in and doubted that she'd ever get the hang of this.  But she did and this window surely proves that. She'll be (Shelby) soldering the back side of this when she comes back in.

  

Rowena's Tiger Eye/LSU Window is all ready for its borders and then a coating of lead.  The eyes aren't completed in the picture below but trust me when I tell you that as I type this the eyes are 100% finished.  I just got a bit carried away and took the picture a little too soon.  This looks great and Rowena's attention to detail has really paid off.  That tiger is practically lifelike!

 

Speaking of attention to detail, next we're going to take a look at Paula's Fleur De Louisiana Window.  It's another flawless project which is something that Paula excels at.  She's certainly not afraid to re-cut any piece of glass that she doesn't think it looks right no matter how much work she has in it.  And that's probably why this window looks so wonderful.  And it's almost completely soldered which means that this will be a completed project before you know it.

  

  

You've seen the front side, now here's the back.  Janet's Santa Window is nearing completion and I have to say that her soldering on the front side is flat out superb.   With just the face to go on the back side I suspect that we'll see this completed upon her arrival next week. 

 

Linda F cropped down a three letter window to just one letter due to size restraints and I think she has her 'T' pretty near completed.  There are only four background pieces to cut and then a border so Linda better start thinking about what she'll be making next because I suspect that this will be in the spotlight next week.

 

Lynn's 'G' Window already looks colorful and that's with just the glare of a florescent bulb hitting it from above.  When this is completed and hanging in a window I'm betting that it's going to be a real show stopper.  With just the background left to cut out I have to say that Lynn is making incrediblely good time with this project.

 

Next we take a look at Jeannette's latest Shrimp boat and as you can see she is ready to cut out her sky.  We haven't drawn it yet but I do have a picture of what the rigging will look like so she'll be cutting when she returns.  We'll add a few clouds to make cutting easier and this window will be every bit as beautiful as her last one. Right now it looks a bit dull but wait until you see the sky behind it.

  

Myrt really loves wrapping her glass for these Transom Windows that she's working on.  In fact, she seems to wrap them over and over again! Between the different sizes of foil (7/32 for the glass and 3/16 for the bevels) and the fact that she's using (or should I say SUPPOSED to be using) black backed copper foil, well, let's just say things got a little bit confusing and a few pieces needed to be re-wrapped.  But fear not because Myrt will be soldering this when she returns.

Mary Grace ran into a bit of a problem with her Sunflower window since no one seems to have any of the Spectrum Yellow glass that looks so good for sunflowers.  But we've hunted some down online and hopefully it will be here in time for classes next week, but until then Mary Grace decided to start work on this wonderful Fruit Bowl Deer Window that she saw Rowena do a few weeks ago.  Mary Grace is off to a good start but I have no clue what she'll be working on next week if the yellow glass is in...

Oh wow, what happened here?  For some reason the resolution on the camera must have got set to something impossibly small when I took the picture of Martha's Iris Window.  I guess you'll just have to take my word for it when I tell you that it's looking real good.  I promise we'll have a bigger picture next week.  Wow, you can't see anything in this picture, can you?

And that's about it this time around.  Hopefully the sky cutting tutorial helped show that no matter how daunting a project may look, if you break it down to small sections and take it once step at a time it's not nearly as bad as you might think.

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

Get My Pickle Out Of The Back Seat

We had another one of our quarterly Weekend Workshops this past weekend and as you will see it was very productive.  We had four students join us on Saturday and Sunday and in the span of two (long) days they managed to create the four beautiful windows that you see below.  Read on to learn their story.

Angie, Megan, Natalie, and Roxane arrived at 9am and we immediately set to work starting with a lesson in cutting glass.  I have to say that it went very well because no one had any problems using their cutter or the pliers we use to break glass.  About an hour later after everyone had successfully cut their crescent moon shape we handed out the patterns that each of the students had picked and began working on actual windows.  We're going to start things off with Natalie's window which is a Fleur De Lis.  She started cutting the easiest pieces first and progressed to the hardest cuts at the very end. Here you can see the actual Fleur De Lis is all cut out and waiting for its background to be cut.

 

Once the background was all cut out Natalie used the glass grinder to go over all of her pieces to ensure a perfect fit.  When that was completed she needed to wrap all of her glass in copper foil which you can see surrounding the edges of most of her glass in this picture. We ended our first day at 6pm just as everyone finished wrapping all their glass pieces.

 

When we regrouped on Sunday, Natalie used a soldering iron to 'tack' together her window before she added the border pieces to it.  For the border she used the same green glass that she used as accent pieces in the actual Fleur De Lis itself.  Once the border was attached the rest of the day was less hectic as Natalie only had to put a finishing bead on both the front and back side of her window.  Doing this required her to sit down, relax, and take her time.

 

And here's Natalie's completed window with a little light behind it.  It's amazing what a bath and a some back lighting can do to change the appearance of these projects.  I've had students swear that they hated their window only to fall in love with it once it was cleaned up.  Natalie did a great job and she should be proud of what she accomplished in just 2 days.

 

Next up we take a look at Megan's Lighthouse Window.  Here's her pattern with about a third of the pieces cut.  This pattern concerned me a little because it has more pieces than the other projects that were being working on, but Megan did a great job and never fell far behind the others even though she had many more pieces to deal with.

 

I believe that everyone had all of their glass cut and ground by about 4:30 on the first day (Saturday).  The rest of the day involved everyone sitting down and relaxing as they received a lesson in wrapping glass.  Once they had the hang of it they began wrapping all the pieces they just finished grinding.  The foil has to be put on evenly and smoothly or the lead will look spotty and amateurish.  As you may be able to see (if you know what you're looking for) Megan did a great job. 

 

Megan tacked everything the next day and once that was done she worked on her border pieces which are wrapped but not yet attached the the center part of her window in the picture below.  Once everything was put together Megan began running her final solder bead on all of the copper foil she surrounded her glass with.

 

And here's Megan's finished Light House Window.  She loved the part where she magically turned the silver lead into copper with a chemical called Copper Sulphate.  Me, I loved how impressed she was at having created this window all by herself.

Next up is Roxane who made the same Fleur De Lis Window that Natalie made but with a very different color scheme.  Here's the majority of the actual Fleur De Lis cut out.  Even without its background being cut out it already looking great.

 

Here we see that Roxane has all of her pieces cut and that she is in the midst of grinding everything to fit.  The bottom portion of her window is fitting together perfectly and the round, red container holds the pins that we use to pin down the pieces she's ground so they don't shift while grinding the other pieces.  You can also see a little bit of the metal square running along the bottom and the left side of the window.  This ensure straight edges and a perfect 90 degree angles in the corner it is currently placed in.

 

With all of Roxane's pieces ground and wrapped she's ready to begin tacking this together with her soldering iron.  Once that simple step is completed she'll move on to finishing this up by attaching some border pieces.

 

From start to finish Roxane made all the steps in making this stained glass window look easy.  I have to say she's a natural at this having caught on to the soldering process far faster that I did when I learned how to do this way back in the 70's.  How can you not look at this window without being impressed?

 

And lastly we have Angie who, if you read the post about out last Weekend Workshop 3 months ago, may be familiar to you.  Angie had so much fun last time that she decided to come back and make another window while bringing some friends along as well (which explains how all of our students found out about us this time around.)   Angie decided to make a double bordered Cross Window and this first picture shows all of the main section cut out and ready to be ground.

 

By the end of the first day Angie had her inside tacked and her first border cut and wrapped as well.  Angie retained a lot from her first class with us and she put her knowledge to good use in constructing this window with hardly any problems at all.

 

Next we see Angie's Cross Window on Sunday afternoon waiting to get it's final coat of solder.  Soldering scares everyone, but it's actually easy if you just take your time and not rush through it.  If you just give the lead time to melt before moving your soldering iron the lead will automatically form a bead.  And that's just what Angie did.

 

Here's the finished window that Angie made with us.  It certainly looks different that it did in that previous pictures, don't you think?  It always amazes people how different their windows look when they have a little light behind them.  Although the colors may have looked dark and lifeless in the first three pictures, you can now see how vibrant and attractive they actually are.  Angie herself said that she wasn't really feeling it for this window while it was on the table but she certainly has no regrets about it now that it's completed.

So in the end everyone had a great time even though there was a tremendous amount of work to be done in just two days.  How do I know for certain that they all had a good time?  Well, Roxane has signed on for two more workshops next year and Angie and Natalie have both signed up for another workshop each.   Russ and I had a great time with everyone and really look forward to seeing everyone again.  And I'll bet their next windows will be even better than these turned out to be.  Lastly I want to thank Angie, Megan, Natalie and Roxane for making my job so much fun.  I've found that it's more about the people than it is the glass-- when I focus on the students before me the glass always manages to work itself out.  Thanks again, girls!

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

Louisiana's Little Thingy

A very important aspect to stained glass is cutting back on waste.  Lately we've seen a lot of students positioning their windows so they are properly oriented to them, which is not always the most efficient way to work on a window especially if it runs tall.   We also see people orientate their pattern and the poster board identically when tracing the pattern to make a second copy.  Just because a pattern is wider than it is high doesn't mean that you should position the pattern onto the poster board that way (as shown below) 

 

As you can see in this second picture a lot of paper can be saved if we simply place the poster board in a portrait position even though the pattern runs in a landscape aspect.  The remainder of the poster board can easily be used for another large window.  This also holds true when positioning your pattern pieces onto your glass, but that's a topic for another blog post.  :-)   Try different positionings with your pattern and it's pieces on your glass to help save both glass and paper and cut your costs.

So Holy Crow, Mary Grace's newest Bird Of Paradise Window turned out to be absolutely stunning.  I honestly didn't feel one way or the other about the glass she had picked for her outer border, but now that I see it lit up-- WOW!  I love this window and Mary Grace should be exceptionally proud of how carefully (yet quickly) she handled each step of this project.  There's not a fault to be found in it.

 

And Carol's Detroit Lions Window is nothing to sneeze at either.  Her craftsmanship is top notch and Carol has proven that she has a firm grasp of all the steps in making stained glass now.  When I drew this pattern for her I put in some challenging cuts that she made her way through very easily.    If her confidence isn't sky high after this window then I don't know what it's going to take to get her to admit that she's now creating above average work.

  

Linda L got four of her eight Heart Mirrors completed this week and I have no doubt that she'll be  completing the remaining four when she comes back in.  These are going to make nice gifts especially since they were made with a broken mirror that her mother once owned.  Linda turned a misfortune into highly sentimental pieces with this project.  Who said broken mirrors are bad luck? 

 

Carol saw Jane's Sunflower Lawn Ornament last week and fell in love with it so much that she decided to make one at home.  I told her to finish the flat section as she would a suncatcher and then bring in the remaining seven smaller petals so I could show her how to attach them.  Within a half hour this was a completed and Carol loved it even more than she did the previous week since she gets to take this one home with her.  Next week she's going to start a Bumble Bee Ornament and it's one of my favorite lawn ornaments.

 

Betty completed her seven crosses this past week and they are a nice looking assortment of colors.  She's now got the art of applying a bead on an outside edge down pat and can even attach the hooks to these herself.   I'll admit that  I'm partial to the two blue ones but I must say that the white cross is particularly stunning. 

Bonnie's three story tall Sunflower Window is coming together for her in an amazingly easy fashion.  She took her time cutting out the flowers and that resulted in a quick grinding session that took less than a half an hour!  The rest of Bonnie's class was spent wrapping the pieces and next week she'll be cutting her 15 easy pieces of background glass. 

Jeanne's Stylized Cross Window has been flipped over and she's now about to begin working on soldering the back side.  It will take most of the night to get the back side soldered correctly so I'm expecting this to be finished not this week but in the following week.  Coloring a window takes time and I'd hate to see this get rushed at the last minute and have the coloring suffer since everything else about this window is perfect.

Betty is finishing up the work on her Magnolia window and is just about ready for the round border to be attached.  Once that's done there's just some soldering to go before Betty gets to call this a completed window.

  

Brenda really went to town working on her Iris Window while she was at home.  She only has the background left to cut and that's about it.  She mentioned that she wasn't happy with the color she picked for the ribbon border but it was the only thing that she had at home at the time.   We talked to Brenda on the phone during the week since she took this back home and she said that she'd re-cut the ribbon out of a different color glass.  I have to say that I'm proud of her for making such a drastic change.  It isn't easy replacing something that you've already cut and ground, but if you don't like every aspect of your window it will never look good to you when it's completed. Way to go Brenda for going that extra mile.

 

Janet decided to put the Santa Face that she's been working on into a background glass and turn it into a window rather than a suncatcher.  Like Brenda, Janet was unhappy with a certain part of her window and she took it apart and redid a section of it while she was at home.  Now his eyes are evenly balanced and he's looking great.  She was going to go with a light green background but everyone agreed that this champagne color worked best.  To give it a completely Christmas feeling Janet will be using both a red and green border to frame this.

  

Cindy is hard at work cutting and grinding not one but TWO of these Corner Accent pieces.  There are about a gazillion pieces in each of these little 10 x 10 x 14 inch triangular panels which would drive me crazy, but Cindy loves working with small pieces. Mark my words, these are going to be impressive little windows.

 

Look at those long nails!  I detect a hint of purple and green underneath those red nails but I have no clue what Martha is doing or what she's accomplishing.  She's a bit paranoid about being 'spied' upon during her creation process so she's being very secretive.  Rest assured that whatever this turns out to be, it will be beautiful.

  

Becky S is ready for the rest of her background glass but because this square window hangs at a 45 degree angle all remaining pieces need to match the same angle which requires a large amount of glass to start with.  This is especially true when you need to cut long pieces like the four that Becky needs to finish this off.  Sadly, we didn't have a piece of waterglass large enough to cut from so Becky will be moving on to something else next week until her glass arrives.  She's still managed to get the front side of her window soldered and I must say that all those thin pieces are looking mighty impressive.

  

And Ann is ready for soldering.  All her glass is cut, the borders are attached and Ann is about to take it easy and relax while she solders these.  Seriously though, there are a lot of tiny Fleur De Lis' in these three windows and I'm impressed that Ann went the full nine yards  and didn't decide to omit the FDL's to make these easier to make.  Way to go, Ann!

 

Terry's Chitimacha Logo Window is really coming together.  The amazing thing is that she didn't have anything cut when she came in- just a pattern.  But now the center tree section (the hardest part) is completely cut out and almost ground, and that was in just one night! The rest of this window is going to be a piece of cake for Terry (and I suspect it already has been)

  

Paula's Louisiana Fleur De Lis Window is an exercise is tediousness.  Even her yellow state of Louisiana has more detail than I've ever seen it rendered in before (Well, in a piece of stained glass.)  I know it's hard to see but even her clear background glass is cut and fitted together which means that Paula should be adding borders when she comes back in.  And I must say that the perfect symmetry in her three border FDL is amazing.

  

Jane's Geometric design window has a completely different look from the version that I did about 10 years ago.  It's amazing how color choices can change the feel of a window.  She has really made this one speak for herself and I must say that I really like this look.  At first I felt that it needed bevels because that was what I used, but now i see that it looks beautiful without them. I love the flowing inner border on this design.

 

Rowena came in and got to work by grinding the top tiger portion of her LSU Window.  By the time class was over she was all ready to wrap her pieces.   She's a bit undecided about the color for the eyes because we've done this before with yellow eyes and again with red.  But I found some iridized orange globs that I think are the perfect mix of red and yellow that I'm going to show to Rowena when she comes back in.  (FYI-  those are red eyes in the picture)

 

Susan's M Window is ready for its background.  I'm still not entirely sure if she's going to cut it into 2 or 4 pieces (neither way will be any easier).  It all depends on whether she wants a horizontal lead line cutting across the middle of the window (which is what most people do in a design like this).  I personally think she should go with just two pieces and if she doesn't like how it looks she can always cut them in half and have four. 

 

 Jeannette began cutting out the boat for her latest Shrimp Boat window and the majority of the work is already completed.  We didn't have a good picture of the boat to get the detailed cuts that will form all the rigging on the top section of the boat but I'm sure Jeannette will have that rectified when she comes back in.  And then she'll be cutting out the sky. 

 

Next week we'll take a look at how Jeannette cut out the last boat that she made.  We were going to cover that this week but we had another Weekend Workshop which has cut deeply into my time.  So expect an extra Blog post sometime during the weekend when we cover what Angie, Roxane, Natalie and Megan accomplished over the weekend with us!

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks