Why Good Photographers are Worth the $

So a month ago I look a workbench pictures of this piece-which looks ... well like a snapshot of a work in progress. There's still a solder spill in the upper left corner , it's not framed yet, and the steel blue reads almost black. Last week, before the show, Di set up a stand, with reflectors and special light and took new pictures. Then, darling computer jockey that she is, she spent hours with Photoshop and other software tweaking the colors and the reflections so we'd get something that more nearly resembled what is actually there.The better picture does not quite show the difference in the dark brown square from the lighter brown sides, but wow! does the piece look great. Photoing glass is a challenge, as the colors never come out right and the is the reflection of the flash or of the lights to deal with.

When she brought down a disk of new pictures along with the glass she had made, I was absolutely amazed. I had not seen my pieces in a week since I sent them to her and wow, she made them look great. She even made a slide show we set up in our booth on her laptop showing our current works, works in progress and new designs.

Our little studio is lucky she can do all this. I'd hate to have to contract this out!

The Bride's Basket Inspired Panel

This as yet unframed piece was inspired by an old quilt patch called Bride's Basket. It's meant to represent a flower and leaves in a small footed basket. I've made some changes to the pattern. Mostly the changes are in using parallelograms or trapezoids for the flower shapes instead of using right triangles as you do in fabric. In fabric the seam line between two same-color triangles visually disappears. Cutting and stitching 2 right triangles into squares is easier than stitching a trapezoid into another piece. You get the dreaded Y shaped seam.

In stained glass though, a Y shaped seam is as easy to insert as a right angle. However, each "seam line" really shows up. So although the final visual effect is the same in a quilters version and ours, we really do have to redraft the quilt patterns for glass use.

One Piece Glass Heart

I thought I'd post a picture of one of the one-piece hearts. I cut most of the shape out freehand in a sort of ice cream cone shape- pointed at he bottom and rounded at the top. I then cut a concave slice out of the top edge, creating the 2 lobes of the heart. I then grind into the space with a 1/2 inch and a 1/4 inch bit to get the v shape between the lobes.

I've no idea who makes this beautiful deeply rippled glass. I found a scrap of it in the "junque" bin at the Glass Key, my local stained glass store. The ripples are deep enough for me to really embed the wire hanger so I don't need to solder or drill into the piece.

Sold the ACEO from the group below.

This piece of green and streaky glass looked like a giant medusa floating in the sea. So what else could I do but I make but an ACEO with a 3D glass and wire baby jelly fish in front? To my delight, this sold yesterday. This is a nice art form.

Really Really Tiny Hearts

I can resist everything except temptation. So after a binge with an iced coffee and chocolate concoction, I could not sleep. Which is of course the best time to cut and grind glass. So a trio of very small, maybe 3/4 of an inch hearts. Oh and a bit of research into quilt designs for a new piece.
I don't know why I'm thinking of new pieces, I've 3 Baltimore album quilts blocks to finish in glass and a bunch of flower baskets to make.

Last of the ACEO's

I swear these are the last I will make for a while- well except for the ones on the soldering table board.

Sunday evening

Well after the ACEO was so well received I had no choice but to make a larger version of the moon and the silver tree. Unfortunately, my daughter likes it. A lot. So another item not going to go into the inventory this week!

Another week in Cape May

Spent another few days in New Jersey helping out Mom, so again , not much glass done. I did however take a wondrous picture of a merhorse so that is just grand. Sister and nephew still workingon the house. More small bits of glass up on Etsy. Oh and a wonderful link to the making of a Tiffany shade . http://www.tiffany-lamps.de/Customers_Information.html

See the new hearts on the Etsy link on the left sidebar too.

Building a New Piece

I've received an interesting commission. The client has approved the rough thumbnail sketch and the major glass selections- but she's leaving the details up to me. Phew! The design meets her requirements that this window provide privacy from her neighbors, let in light, and add to a spacious feel in the room.

Since these are South facing windows, I don't have to worry about making the room dark if I use a lot of very saturated color. It's an issue in smaller for North facing windows. The bright and rich colors will give her all the privacy she craves.

By designing a landscape, the window will visually expand the space rather than close it off as a more Victorian design would do.

Fianlly, the right way to make a window is to have a complete cartoon of the design on the table , cut and fit all the peices and the assemble the entire panel at once. I'm not doing that. Since I have free rein, I'm building the fun elements first: the peonies, the birds, the other animals. After I've arranged them in the most pleasing way, I'll fit in the back round. This gives me the ability to tweak the design until the last moment, and fosters last- minute inspiration.

So for the next few weeks( did I mention that this needs to be finished fast) I'll be blogging about this piece and how it is progressing.

MacIntosh Rose Fused Project

There's been a few days of catch up at ye olde homestead, with one chicken trying to brood a batch of unfertilized eggs, a strawberry patch the needs weeding, and a studio that is a mess and a half. We're fooling the broody hen with bright pink plastic Easter eggs. She can keep those warm and we can steal all the others under her for breakfast.

The strawberry patch got weeded and 6 rhubarb plants set in. Strawberry and rhubarb pie may just be one of heaven's gifts to mortals. Yum.

As for the studio... well.... Not so much. I did manage to make this very small fused McIntosh Rose sample . I've roses on the brain these days so I experimenting. Sometime later next month I'm going to try molding something, but this is the first step.

Back From the Show

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKq-OoFOBxh_svRYf8CNZhje8wO6JrQtVGPErcdJQTsZU1yuIQ8xSXj460Pkv4tjT-mMG4acVE8VgO2wkgx0lo7QiBrbf6lXTCn6ia9f2_ryn3hIxcc3gvy9SO8lUXC6NzClYznsOISP-u/s1600-h/100_0316.JPG This link is to a previously uploaded photo, which TA TA I managed to sell at the show last Sunday.

Returned yesterday from out show at Malvern Blooms, in Malvern PA. It was a lovely day, the town is cute, the main street was closed for the fair and a good time had by all. I'd joined Di at her studio on Saturday and she showed me some wonderful new pieces she's worked up: a 2 foot in diameter Mariner's Compass, a new version of Maryland Block and a 10 pointed star in a decagon frame she designed herself. She promised to post photos on our web site , but it may take her a couple of weeks. http://www.glassonthrsquare.com/

I'm tired from the drive, got lost in Baltimore on my way to a lecture last night and generally, I need to get my act together before Wednesday.

The photo is of a 7 inch square trial piece inspired by the blue glass. It looked like the orbit of planets, so I added a sun and rays to it. Not too sure I'll make many, but I like to make things occasionally that are different form my usual pieces.

Hearts To Go

I'm busy gearing up for the new show this weekend in Malvern, PA. We've never been to this show before so I don't know what to expect.
Di has most of the stock up at her place in Pennsylvania, so I'm just puttering around making a couple of new patterns and some hearts.
Last year before Wine in the Woods, a Maryland show, I got heartily sick of making Tumbling Block panels, so I cut up scrap into wacky, freehand hearts. They sold very well. In fact , we sold enough to cover the booth fees and travelling expenses. So since then, before every show, I check out my glass scrap stash and get to work.

I'm sure someday I'll get sick of these too, but so far, so good!

Rooting Around in the Attic of my Computer

I love computers. But I don't understand them. Someday I'll understand how I managed to delete my trashcan. Since I deleted the trash can, I could not empty it. I filled my entire hard drive . The nice people at the repair shop couldn't fix it either, so they copied my old data into the new computer .

I've been slowly going through the old files, getting rid of junk and generally digitally housecleaning. And so I ran across these. I made these 5 small sun catchers/ ornaments for a wedding. My then 11 year old daughter was the junior bridesmaid at a Wiccan inspired event. The bride had a beautiful butterfly ornament that represented Air to her. She asked if I would make complementary ornaments representing Water, Fire and Earth as well as 2 more in keeping with the occasion for the flower girls. She planned to have the bridesmaids carry these instead of bouquets. I'm particularly pleased with the star and the heart flower, representing Day and Night.

The wedding was beautiful.

I wonder what else I have in those old files...

Finally Figured Out How To Do This!

So here I am , the less Techno savvy partner in Glass on the Square, the shared stained glass studio I belong to . Since I finally figured out how to do this, I can update everyone without having to learn HTML. We do have a real website, Glassonthesquare.com, of course, but that is for more serious things, like show schedules and new offerings.This is just me, what I'm working on now and , well what frustrates me. So here goes, full speed and ignore that lovely churning white water ....

For the last 2 years or so, Di and I have been re interpreting traditional quilt blocks into glass. Which sounds pretty easy and is not.

Glass is NOT fabric- it does not stretch, it does not fold, it does not come in as many colors, and most of all- glass breaks! I hesitate to remember some of my debacles.

Mostly we have been working on straight forward, geometric pieces. We've done variations on Log Cabins, Flying Geese, Dutchman's Puzzle, Baby Blocks and the like. We had always thought to work on other , less geometric pieces. Di wants to do a series based on Little Red Schoolhouse and I've been dying to make something based on Baltimore Album quilts.

2 weeks ago, I found 1 1/14 inch molded red roses in a little store in New Jersey. They were perfect for the quilt square I had had in mid for a while. I finally got my cutter in gear and the result is above.

Not too shabby for a working draft, if I say so myself!