Plenty Of Activity
It was certainly a busy day. We finished windows, started new windows, drew new patterns, designed lamps.. you name it, we probably did it!
Kim showed up and immediately set upon washing and coloring her window. It wasn’t that much later that we hung it up outside and started taking pictures for the website. It turned out wonderful and I hope Kim is proud of herself. Her work has really come a long way and it certainly shows here.
Kim has picked some butterfly patterns and a small oval humming bird pattern for her next few projects. She’s already got the humming bird cut and ground so we should see that finished next week!
Joann finished with her cutting and began the somewhat tedious task of grinding. In a window like this it’s important that everything line up perfectly. While that’s true in all windows it’s especially so in windows involving birds. If one feather is out of place it affects every other feather in line with it and instead of a graceful bird in flight you could easily end up with what looks like a crippled bird about to crash to the ground. But it looks like that won’t be the case here with Joann. Her grinding, like her cutting, is spot-on. She’s taken what she ground home to wrap rather than waste class time wrapping. It doesn’t require any tools or make a mess so it’s practical to wrap pieces at home. Wrapping is a boring process and doing it at home helps maximize the time we spend together in class by allowing the student to spend their class time doing things that they may need help with– not that Joann seems to need any help. 
Ellen’s Iris windw is moving right along. She was able to tack together her flower, lay it on her background glass (which was cut to the correct size) and then trace around the flower. When she cut her background everything lined up perfectly and all she really had to do was skim her pieces to prep them for the foil. After she wrapped the pieces and tacked them all together she cut one of her 2 borders and got that ground, wrapped and tacked also! The woman is a powerhouse!
Julie, like Kim, set upon washing her window as soon as she came in. She then used black patina on it to help bring the lead lines out by adding contrast between the clear glass and the lead lines. A quick wax later and we had this beveled beauty hanging in the sunlight ready for pictures. I know Julie was pleased with it because I got a HUGE smile when I asked her what she thought of it. My only complaint with the window is that it correlates to an aspect of Indian Art a certain pretentousness which, conveyed in the glass medium we’re using, denotes a mixture of both Mad Abandon and Staunch Conservatism. JUST KIDDING JULIE!!!! I’d have loved to see her face when she started to read that last line. Julies window is perfect and I’d change nothing about it. Look and see for yourself:
Ann decided that she needed a small plaque-type window that would display her house number. Something simple but sweet. I beleive we hit the nail on the head because she got it drawn out, all cut, wrapped and tacked together. This one will be finished next week after it gets a quick soldering.
And that was some of what happened in class today. We’ve designed a unique Mission Style lamp shade for a base that Julie picked up and she’ll be working on that next week.
Lastly, we all missed Billie today and hope to see her next week. We also hope that all is well with her mother who was taken to the hospital yesterday. They both have all our prayers.
Paul