'Tis the Season

Santa Sun Catcher

I love decorating for the holidays. I think I got that from my mother. Christmas was her favorite time of year and I so enjoyed helping her decorate the house. She had so many clever ways to bring the spirit of Christmas into our home. Now I feel that I carry that tradition in my own way.

I feel like I've been missing in action for several weeks. Holiday preparations and all that. I wanted to share a few of my stained glass creations that decorate our home this season. The first is a Santa sun catcher. I wish I could claim this design as my own, but I cannot. In the days before I started creating my own designs, I was quite the fan of Christmas pattern books. This originally was a Christmas ornament and I just didn't think that was the right size for this Santa, so I made him about 12" in diameter and he hangs in the kitchen window. I was really big on adapting patterns to suit my tastes and this guy is a perfect example of that. He helps me enjoy my time doing the dishes...of which I am not a fan, but it's one of those tasks that must be done! I used several different types of iridescent glass (red & white) in this one. He really does make me smile.

The Candle Nestled in Poinsettias

I've always loved finding the right glass to create a flame for a candle. I probably made this piece a good 15 years ago. Red poinsettias were my mom's favorite! The white in the candle is this great iridescent glass. I made several from the pattern book I had, one with a cardinal, one with some bells, all very Christmasy! I shared these creations as gifts with family and friends and kept this one for myself. This one is hung at the side window by our front door.

O Christmas Tree

This last one is another favorite of mine. A Christmas tree, but instead of the usual green, I used Bullseye's confetti and streamers Christmas glass with reds and greens. I had fun incorporating the red and green glass jewels in this one too. I have placed this next to the Christmas tree in our living room.

Each year these migrate to different locations in our home. I hope you enjoy the sign above this tree as much as I do. I found it a couple of years ago and really enjoyed the humorous note.

I do have projects waiting for completion and look forward to sharing these with you very soon.

Until next time, aspire to be more as an artist and a person. I hope your Thanksgiving holiday was wonderful.

My Violet Volunteers

Ever since I was a child, I have loved violets. Probably because of their lush purple colors. I remember there always was a batch out by my parents' garden and I took great delight picking some to give to my mom. She would put them in a small vase and we would enjoy them for a short time.

Today I was able to get out into my flower garden and these little guys have cropped up everywhere. I just love it. They are so colorful. I took a number of pictures, I'm thinking I'd like to do a stained glass window of them. I'm not sure if I should do a group, like this picture, or just a solitary one, or maybe a pair. I think it would be fun to do all of the above actually. What are your thoughts?

I mixed up my various work efforts today. I'm currently doing the coldwork part for two different bowls. One is the galaxy bowl and the other I have yet to post any pictures of. I thought it would be fun to just publish the finished piece. I hope to have both of these done in the next week or so.

May this week be a great week of creativity for all of you.

Order is Back in the Studio

I'm pleased to report that it actually took less time than I thought to re-gain order in my studio. Before I started this clean up, I didn't have one clutter free surface. Now my plan/goal is to keep things as close to this as possible. One of the keys for me will be to put things back as I use them. I have locations for things better defined. The peg boards were added this fall in one of my last attempts to reorganize and they helped, but clutter seems to multiply. I've conquered it for now.

Here's the tour of the studio.

This view shows my light table in the foreground. It doubles as a place where I do my wire wrapping. Right now it is set up for wire wrapping and I have the surface covered with the cloth I keep in place to prevent beads, tools, glass from rolling around. To the left is my large work surface (a Koala cutting table on rollers). It's the perfect height for me...I'm a little over 5' 7" and this is about 36" high so it keeps me from bending over too much to work. The floors are stained and sealed concrete, so I have a couple of anti-fatigue mats that I can stand on for long periods of time. BIG help. I have two grid glass cutting systems set up on that table, covered with a vinyl table cloth to protect the surface from water spray when I'm grinding. The grid systems are on either side of the glass grinder. To the right is another large work table. I generally use its surface as a spot to assemble stained glass windows or build items that are going into the kiln.

Another view of my two largest work surfaces. Lots of storage under each. I have an Ott-Lite on rollers that gives the best light of any, so I use it a lot for detail work.









This gives a better view of my light table where I wire wrap. I also use the light table to cut stained glass as it allows me to have a good idea of what light will look like coming through the glass. I can pick and choose which section of the glass will best represent what I want in a design.

Yes, I have a TV in here. I listen to lots of movies or music while I work. Depends on my mood. I can't and don't actually sit and watch movies as I just can't do that and work. I just like to have something on in the background. And when I need a break, then I'll watch whatever scene is on.... I get a lot of use out of DVDs.



This last view shows my overflowing glass bins. The sad thing.....this isn't all of my glass. Yep, I'm a glass-aholic! These are really great storage bins for the large sheets of glass. Dan and I built them a few years ago, from a design given in the book "How to Design Your Stained Glass Studio". Great little book, but I don't think it's in print anymore.


And no picture of the studio would be complete without one of our bassets. I think you can see Newton in the foreground of a couple of these.

It was time well spent and I'm very happy with the results. I've started working on the bowl in preparation for slumping it.

Now, if any of you are up to sharing photos of your studios, that would be GREAT! I know Tracey has. I'd love to see how your work spaces are set up.

Peace Offering - Complete

Here she is. Completed and framed with sunlight truly bringing her to life. Milo Stephen's painting (shown just below) and now in stained glass. Even if I do say so myself, I think she is gorgeous. It's been such fun working on this piece and seeing her come to life in glass. I just love the glass, especially the red background.



Now I get to enjoy the wonderful state of "makarios", which Aristotle used to define the highest human happiness. I love that feeling when I finish a piece of stained glass.

Peace Offering - Soldered

I just finished soldering "Peace Offering". Sadly, there was no sunlight today, so the picture was taken with artificial light and really doesn't do her justice. This was taken right before I applied some pewter patina, which creates a really nice aged affect to the solder lines. The patina needs to set for 24 hours. Then I will begin the final cleaning, which involves waxing the glass and the solder lines. This not only protects the surface, but adds a lovely sheen. The next picture I will post of her will be when she is framed in the oak frame I have AND there is actual sunlight to show her true beauty.

Peace Offering - Work In Progress, Foil Complete

I just finished putting copper foil around all of the cut pieces in "Peace Offering". She's ready for soldering, which I plan on starting tomorrow. Thought I would show a couple of different views as I'm trying to show the beautiful colors.

I'm really anxious to see the light coming through this one. Well, I'm anxious to see the light coming through all of my stained glass windows when I'm at this stage of the work. The glass I chose for this piece is so rich and colorful. I hope to have it ready for framing this weekend and will be posting more pictures of the final completion stages.

Happy 2009 everyone!

Peace Offering - Work in Progress, Cutting and Fitting Complete

Here is the latest photo of my work on "Peace Offering" a stained glass window commission I received from Milo Stephens for her original painting of this lovely lady.

The cutting and fitting are complete. I will be cleaning each piece as I begin the copper foil process in preparation for soldering.

I am so pleased with how this piece is progressing. The glass is a wonderful representation of the colors Milo used in her original painting (I think). There are some variations, but in the end I think this will be a very nice representation of Milo's painting.

The next post I will do on Peace Offering's progress will be when the copper foil is complete. That will really show the lines and give a much better idea of how this will look once it is soldered.

Studio reorganization

Yesterday I had one of those 'ah ha' moments in the morning as I was relaxing with one of the bassets on my lap, enjoying my morning coffee. My mind works this way, an idea will pop into my head and it can be the simplest of revelations, but the value of it is just great.

When we built our house almost 4 years ago, I designed my studio area with stained glass work in mind. At that time I had not entered the world of warm glass, wire wrapping, etc. I felt I had more than enough space for surface areas and storage. Moving forward to the present, I've been having some struggles with keeping things separate (fusible glass from stained glass, wire, tools, pretty much you name it) and having enough work surfaces so I can multi-task. Most of the time I'm working on a stained glass piece in one area, fused stuff and or wire wrapping.

Now to my idea. I purchased a great work table manufactured by Koala as a cutting table over 3 years ago (here's a picture of it). I liked the options for expanding or shrinking the work surface of this table, plus it is on casters which makes moving it a breeze.

Until yesterday I was only using 3/4 of the work surface because of how I had positioned it in the studio. When the light dawned for me yesterday, I realized that I could use the full work surface by changing the position in the room and it would actually give me more room (floor space) in the studio too! Wow. It always scares me when it takes a while to see a better approach. I guess the good news is I figured out a better approach.

"Peace Offering" ~~ Progress

Here's a picture of the progress I've made on Milo's "Peace Offering" window. I have the pieces for the dove and her face cut out too, but I took this picture yesterday afternoon when the sunlight was out and the reds and greens were showing up so vibrantly and that was before I had worked on the dove and her face.

Now, I'm working on fitting things together, which is a fairly time consuming process. I know some glass artists that can cut things out and they just fit well right away. I generally need to grind each piece and get them to fit as I work on building the window. When I first learned stained glass, my teacher said that getting all the pieces to fit was where she spent most of her time....and that is what I work on the longest too.

It's so nice to work on something with reds and greens this time of year....very Christmas. I'm glad I changed out some of the glass so the window more closely resembles the painting.

Here's one of the things I love doing with stained glass...all the reds are from the same sheet of glass. The same is true of the green. It's intriguing and I love the challenge of creating the 'shadings' with the same sheet of glass.

As a footnote, we're under a winter storm advisory. It's snowing and the wind is gusting pretty good right now. I'm thankful to be home, safe and sound. We may be house bound tomorrow.

Progress Reports

I'm happy to report that I had a successful outcome of the firing of the batch of 8 Texas Star Christmas ornaments. I'm posting a picture of them and
the next picture of the same ornaments with the pre-cut stars for the completion of the Texas flag look. It's so fortunate for me that Wasser glass pre-cuts shapes that most of us would find beyond difficult to do. These little stars come from Wasser and I love using their glass. I plan on doing a tack fuse to hold these smaller stars in place on the ornaments.

Currently I'm firing the last batch of Texas Star ornaments and Christmas Tree ornaments. This batch of tree ornaments are a little wider on the bottom, at the customer's request. Unfortunately, the picture doesn't show the layer technique I'm using all that well, but the outcome from my first effort was really cool....even if I do say so myself. It was a technique that I learned in the Patty Gray class I took at D & L last month.

For the trees, I stacked 5 different types of glass and as the glass fuses they melt into each other creating a wonderful effect (I think).

The Texas Stars have been challenging. Tomorrow I plan on devoting the greater part of the day to working on the Peace Offering stained glass window. I'm very anxious to see the light come through this one, but then I guess I always am. This window seems special and I'll continue to post my work in progress on it.

Hey Karen....it really wasn't my intent to send snow your way! Boy, it isn't officially winter yet and we're experiencing the harshness of it!

Christmas ornaments

It's been a busy weekend. Hosting Thanksgiving dinner, putting up the Christmas decorations, working on projects from my stained glass to fused glass.

Here's a picture of Christmas ornaments prior to firing them in the kiln last night. I'm waiting for them to cool so I can see the actual results! The stars are a representation of the Texas state flag and were ordered as gifts for relatives. The lone Christmas tree ornament was a special request.

Peace Offering, my stained glass commission, is progressing and I hope to post a picture of that later today.

Oh yes, and we are in the midst of our first winter storm....looks like we've got 8" of snow and it's still snowing! Perfect day to be home.

Looking for a Bright Note

Well, my kiln needs a 'transplant'. While trying to trouble shoot the controller, it started smoking. Not a good sign when it comes to circuit boards. So, I removed it and will send it to the manufacturer for replacement. And I still don't know what the actual cause of the problem was. As my husband says, we'll see what happens when the new circuit board comes back and we install it. If it's still malfunctioning after that, we'll try to find an authorized repair service in the area. For now, my kilnwork has come to a halt and I am very disappointed.



Looking for the bright note in my day, I was able to solder the Peace Angel. I wasn't sure I could put a lead border around her, but after looking at her tonight, I think I can, so that will be my next step. I did get to see the light shine through the glass this afternoon and she's beautiful.

Things happen for a reason. I just don't know what that is right now in terms of the kiln malfunction. But I'll go forward with my stained glass pursuits and wire wrapping glass cabochons for now.

At the end of this week, I will be heading up to Denver for a three day glass with Patty Gray. D & L Stained Glass is having her come to teach her techniques for fused bowls. That's another bright spot for me.

Happy creating everyone.

Progress Reports

When I opened the kiln this morning, I was greeted by this beauty! I'm happy with the result and it confirmed why this glass is expensive too. Nice rich colors. The picture doesn't show how well the accents compliment the streaky parts of the glass, but they do. Several of them are iridized, which really adds a nice effect. Given this result, I will proceed with making the next two larger sizes. This piece is so 'fiery' that I think I may call this series Fuego.

As a mentioned a few days ago, I want to try Peter McGrain's glass painting techniques. I now have my design....an aspen branch, of course.


This is my design template I used for cutting out the glass.

And I'm also posting a picture of the actual piece that just went in the kiln this morning. What I've done here is place the template underneath the glass circle and it becomes my guide for leaf placement. Once fused, I'll go back and paint in lines and other washes to create some of the effect I'm going for with this piece.



In my opinion, the cool thing about fusing is you can do things with glass (shapes, lines or lack of lines) that you just can't do in the traditional stained glass method. If all goes well, the fused blank will be ready for painting in the branches and creating some shading for the leaves. You probably noticed some other items with this piece. I'm working on some new pendant designs so I added them to this batch for the fuse.

If I'm happy with the outcome of this small plate (about 9" in diameter), I have two others in larger sizes that I will use for this series. I imagine I'll name this series The Aspen Branch.

Happy Creating All!

Work in Progress - Foiled!

In this case....foiled! is a good thing. Here's the Peace Angel, with all of the copper foil complete. Now the definition of the lines is clear. Soldering will be the next step.

In my multitasking process today, I still need to cut out another design for fusing tomorrow. With that as a goal, I may not start soldering the Peace Angel until tomorrow. That gives me a large time slot to devote to the soldering process and I can complete that phase, which is important to do all at once, if possible. Once the soldering is done, oxidation of the solder lines takes place almost immediately. It's important to clean those lines and apply the desired patina asap. I think I'll wait to start soldering until tomorrow.

At least she's almost complete and I'm very happy with the outcome so far. It's been a productive day for me.

Work in Progress - Pieces Cut and Fitted

Here she is! All of the pieces have been cut and fitted. Her wings are an iridescent white, which the picture doesn't show very well. The definition of the piece will become apparent after I copper foil all of the individual pieces in preparation for the soldering process.

I changed the color of her ribbon to a rich navy blue, instead of the yellow gold I had planned to do. I also used iridescent clear glass for those areas that needed to be transparent.

I started this project three weeks ago and it has really come together fast for a stained glass work. There are 145 pieces and some are extremely small; that dictates the detail in her hair, wings, and the dove she holds.

Next step will be copper foil, which can be fairly quick. And then on to one of my favorite parts, soldering! I'll post another picture after the copper foil is complete.

A Diversion Tonight

Tonight I indulged in a diversion.

I started working on the full size drawing for the commission I recently received from a fellow artist, Milo Stephens. She is a very talented oil painter and has done a series of mosaic type paintings of women with their personal stories. This one is "Peace Offering". Milo's painting is on the right, and my design for a stained glass window is on the left.

Milo and I connected through Art Scuttlebutt. I admired her work and she liked my stained glass so much that she commissioned this window. So this will be my next project after I complete the "Peace Angel". Tonight's diversion was to draw the full sized sketch of the window. I did this because Friday afternoon, my husband and I are headed to my glass supplier in Denver so I can select the glass for this piece. I'm so excited to start working on the window itself. I needed the full size sketch to use it for glass selection and to know how much I'll need of different colors.

A little bit about my design process....I use the Glass Eye program to start my initial design. That's how I was able to email various designs (jpegs of the design) to Milo. She liked this one and it will be 9" x 24". I am blessed to be able to do this window for her. So, I took a break from working on the Peace Angel, so I could get my drawing ready for my glass shopping on Friday.

Current Work in Progress

I'm working on a stained glass angel. It's a reproduction form Jan Patten's the Carousel Collection. This one is the Peace Angel and I am doing it for my friends who recently had their second child. I did the Jubilation Angel for them upon the birth of their first child 2 1/2 years ago. Hopefully both of the angels will become something that is passed on to the next generation.

I thought it would be fun to post a picture of the work in progress. This stage in the creative process is challenging for me as I work to fit all of the pieces of glass together correctly. My "ah ha" moment comes much later in the process after the piece is soldered and I can actually hold it up so the light comes through it. Then I have confirmation of my glass and color choices. I can honestly say I have never been disappointed with my first glimpse of the light bringing a piece to 'life'. One of my favorite parts in the stained glass window process.

I plan to have this window done by the end of the month. Stay tuned......

Where to Start?

Ever since returning from our trip to the Tetons, the ideas have been swirling about in my head. I thought I would post a picture of these red berries that were thick in a certain spot around Jenny Lake. I think this would be the coolest design for a piece of stained glass or maybe even a fused plate.

Right now I'm working on a reproduction of a stained glass angel, called Peace, for friends of mine. This is a gift for the birth of their second child (who was born on 9/26/08), so I'm behind schedule. I did a reproduction of the Jubilation angel as my gift to them for their first child. The good news is that they know I'm working on it and no worries about the delivery date of this angel. My goal is to have it completed by the end of the month.

So I'm busy creating and it is fun to have ideas swarming around in my head.

Relax, Rejuvenate, Recharge

I will be taking a break for the next few days while recharging my creative 'batteries' with a trek to one of my favorite spots, The Grand Tetons. I hope to see lots of moose, elk, buffalo, and other wildlife. I also look forward to hiking in Yellowstone and finding more inspiration from nature. I know Dan will be taking plenty of photographs and my hope is there will be some future stained glass designs for me in those photos of his.

I also hope that we will have the opportunity to see some of the gorgeous fall colors in those settings. I love this time of year.

For now, I wish all of you continued inspired creativity while I relax, rejuvenate, and recharge.

All Nine Entries Accepted for Glass at the Gardens

I have some mixed emotions this morning. I am happy to report that all nine of my entries for The Glass at the Gardens Show have been accepted! It's great to know they all made the cut! I posted a few of them in my gallery at Art Scuttlebutt, so you can see them by clicking here and then go to view more pics under my picture on that page.

While I'm very happy and humbled by being accepted, I'm also more than a little awe struck by the beauty of some of the other pieces in the show. The talent in the Glass Artist Fellowship is phenomenal and I know I must continue to work hard so my work becomes even better. It's good to see what others do; that's a motivator. I always strive to set the bar even higher for what I plan to create on my next piece. Stretch, grow! I KNOW I can do it and I will. It's a real boost to see the work of others that I admire....helps me to drive myself to get better.

I feel very blessed and look forward to the opening reception tomorrow night. Boy am I going to be one tired puppy this week with all the trips up to Denver. It's worth it though......