First Check from new Gallery

We got our first check from VIX Gallery today . VIX sold out of our smaller hearts and also sold a small panel. What a nice way to begin the new year. So of course, it's back to hearts for me since Valentine's is rapidly approaching.
All this, and a re design of the website going on. Wow, I thought I'd get a brief break after the holidays!
I convinced Di to handle the redesign of the website, and she agreed. So now I get late night calls asking me to look at the newest tweak. So far, it looks great: a nice background, a gallery page, a salesroom, details about us and a page for other really nifty sites we've each found over the years.

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!

Picture of New Trial Piece Stained Glass

As promised, a mock up of the trial panel I'm working on. Just some English muffle for the border, some swirled pieces for the background, and a red heart in the middle. I'm not sure it is solid looking enough; a stained glass piece needs some presence and I'm not sure this has it. I'm using odd scraps I have around so I've only a bit invested. Still, I find that working out a design in paper is useful, but at some point, you have to reach for the cutter.

I'm reconsidering the heart- it's not right. This may need a different shape heart, a completely different piece in the center- I'm not sure what.

Designing Small Stained Glass Panel

I've been having so much fun with the small one piece hearts, I thought I'd try to come up with a small panel that uses them.

After playing around , I finally came up with a 7" square panel set on point. For non quilters, that means oriented like a diamond. I've a knobby English Muffle glass in a sherry color as a border, with a champagne colored background and a wine red free hand heart in the center. Since the background and border are regular, I thought I 'd more or less center an irregular heart as the focal point. It keeps the piece from being too static.



I picked warm Fall colors, but the undertones clashed. The orange red heart looks terrible next to the English muffle maroon in the border. Fortunately, the champagne swirls bridge the gap between the 2 colors.





Small panels, ornaments and sun catchers tend to be viewed up close, so the static versus flowing aspects of the design are more noticeable. In a very large piece, the most important consideration is the effect the colors have on surrounding area.

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.

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.

Etsy and Quilt Shop

I finally figured out how to use Etsy, the on-line craft outlet( see the small version in the sidebar) . I just sold a red heart and am getting a bit of interest in other pieces so that's to the good. Of course I left for the Jersey shore right after the sale so I could not mail the piece out as quickly as I'd like, but that's okay! A sale's a sale!

I got to go to the beach, to the water park with daughter, sister and little ones, and to the rodeo at Cowtown , New Jersey. Yep, for over 53 years there's been Saturday Rodeo just over the bridge form Delaware. Now for those of us who flunked American Geography , Delaware is about as East as you can get! But the Cowtown Rodeo had all the trappings: a parade, rodeo clowns, bull riding, really fast calves that did not want to be roped, bucking broncs and very sore cowboys.

More Flowers for the Commission

Okay, I've a bird, and 2 peonies foiled. We won't mention that the bird actually belongs in another window. I'm getting there.

I've also just figured out how to make one piece hearts. This was a happy accident as I had a scrap of green swirled glass of about the right dimensions. Now to figure out what to do with it!

Back in the Saddle Again

It's been a while again since I posted , mostly because I'm still working on that house for my nephew. Kitchen is done, he had a barbecue for the 4th, porch is looking good. So it's time to focus on glass again.

I recently posted some glass hearts on ETSY, the craft market site. I still prefer to show our larger panels at shows since one really has to see the pieces to get the full impact- A photo does not do justice to the glass. But for the smaller pieces, where we just really are playing with pretty colors, well, it's okay in a photo.

I make these when I really really really get bogged down with a piece. Right now I'm still drafting the design for a custom window that should have daffodils, a brown cat, peonies, a peaceful landscape and a cherry tree . Okay. It is a large window and the fee will be very nice, but oh it's a big project. So I make these to encourage myself and to have a project done!

Wretched Class and Too Much Glass

Spent the day in class learning how to create web sites in Dreamweaver. Taught by a very nice, very knowledgeable man who ought to have taught an advanced class, not one for newbies. Way to long, way to in depth for complex ideas that were interesting but beyond the scope of the class. The 12 hour course is half over and we only got through chapter 1 of 7!

And when I got home, this is what awaited me: too much undone stuff.

I'm for a quick cup of tea and some bad TV.