Bayou Salé GlassWorks

It’s been quite a productive week with a lot of work getting completed all around. Let’s get started with out latest student, Tommy.

Tommy decided that for his first project he would make an LSU window for himself. He settled on a blocked letter design with some shadowing to give it a 3D effect. He’s using a clear textured glass for the background, purple for his shadows, and yellow for the actual letters. He traced out his pattern, cut it all out with a pair of scissors and then proceeded to cut all of his glass. Within an hour or so he was finished with everything save for his borders (which we always add on after the window is tacked together). Moving to the grinder he ground all his pieces so they fit perfectly. By 9:00 he was finished and we gave him a quick refresher course in how to wrap all his glass pieces in copper foil so he could do that while he’s at home between classes. Tommy’s work is incredibly meticulous and he’s moving along very quickly. He does a lot of wood work at home and maybe that’s why he’s taken so quickly to working with patterns and getting everything to fit together. Next week he will tack this together and get the borders attached. The picture below is framed out between two squares which is keeping all his edges even. The finished window will have two borders.

Gerald got the sky and the water cut and ground for his Pelican window this week. Rather than using 1 piece of glass for the water he cut it up into rolling waves which took a lot of time, but added more depth to his window. For the sky he choose a simple light blue with a lot of white swirled throughout. The simple sky ensures that his birds don’t get lost in the background. He cut and ground it all and will be doing some wrapping at home this week. Next week he’ll add his border and start soldering. This window is just about finished at this point in time. Make sure to pay attention to the intricate design in the water when you click on this picture to see the enlarged version.

Cheryl, who has many projects in the works, worked some more on her address window. Since it’s so big we had to worry about making it transportable so that she can work on it both at home and here at the shop. To do this we haven’t tacked the outer border to the center number section of her window. This means the window can be disassembled and reassembled for easy transportation. With the center portion of her window all tacked together she proceeded to cut and grind the blue pieces that interlock between the corners and the central border. She got a good three quarters of the window finished during class and she plans on having the other 1/4 ready next week. Cheryl’s biggest problem at this point in time is that the white glass we ordered to fill in the sections between the two blue borders came in wrong. Replacement glass is being shipped as we speak so hopefully we’ll have it next week when she’ll probably need it. And don’t even ask poor Cheryl about the delay in her glass rods arriving. Let’s just say that when you look for a specialty item online you should check to make sure you are ordering from within the United States. (This one is clearly MY fault!) After I showed Cheryl how to disassemble her window to transport it I realized that I hadn’t taken a picture of it so I quickly colored her pattern in Photoshop to show you how far along she’s progressed. Next weeks picture will be the real deal…

Fran finished all the cutting on her Camaro Window and was wrapping it at home when she was here last. When she came in this week she had it ready to go.  She put it all together and then pondered the color choice for the 3 remaining pieces and the border itself. We had to re-grind a piece or two to get it to fit together which is normal for a project with this many pieces. Each piece of glass is wrapped with 1 mil foil and all those 1 mil’s add up when you count the number of pieces there are in a window of this complexity. It only took a few minutes and then the grill and headlights took over as Fran’s priority. After contemplating numerous colors and textures we all decided that using a heavily textured clear glass gave us a suitable look for the reflective chrome of the car. The headlights were done in a similar textured glass, but not identical. Once that was done the hunt for a border color was on. We tried many colors and eventually settled on a pice of royal blue glass. Fran learned how the strip cutter is used and then after she ground all the strips she packed them up and took them home to wrap. She’ll be soldering this window next week for sure.

Jessie, who finished her Horse Window last week, came in and found her owl pattern all drawn up to size. There are about a hundred pieces in this window so it’s not going to be a quick and easy project, but she’s made great progress on just her first night working on it. She traced it all out, numbered it and then colored it so we know what color glass each of the pieces should be cut from. She’s close to having a good one third of this window cut already. I’ll bet the owl itself will be all cut next week and then she’ll be ready to start grinding it.

Joey worked on wrapping all the pieces in his Cocky-Rooster window and got pretty far into it before the night ended. His window is ground perfectly and his wrapping on even the tiniest pieces is precise and even. He gets a big thumbs up from me because unbeknownst to him I watched as he would trim his overlapping foil ends with a razor knife rather than leaving uneven overlaps. This makes for perfect solder lines when he solders this window next week. When Joey is wrapping glass he gets so wrapped up in his work (no pun intended) we can pretty much forget he’s there in the class! His Rooster is looking great and Joey will be finishing this one up shortly.

Mark was another student who came in with all of the glass he took home with him wrapped and ready to assemble. He still had pieces left to grind so that was what he concentrated on doing. By the end of the class the window was not only ground, but it was wrapped and tacked together! We still have a few minor pieces to fill in but we left them for last to ensure that everything would line up perfectly. The only thing left to do are 3 beaks and 6 leg pieces. Then Mark will add a border (forty-five minute’s work at best) and then start soldering his window. I already said that I loved this window last week so I’ll just imply it here again this week. :-)  BTW, I colored the missing areas orange/yellow where the beaks will go because it just looked strange when I looked at the picture without them in place. 

It looks like we may have another new student next week so be prepared for a new butterfly!

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

Every week I’m more and more amazed at what our students are accomplishing on their own. They are walking in the shop with completed projects or telling stories of things that they’ve started and finished at home without me ever seeing it! I’d have to say that our students have all moved past the beginner stage and are now very capable glass artists.

The first person to walk in the door on Tuesday was Jane. When she left last week she had the bigger pieces of her window cut out but still had a lot of tiny flower petals to go. So when she walked in the door with a window that was completely cut, ground and soldered I was amazed. That was a lot of tedious work to get done in 7 days. She only had to put the border on her window and the only reason she didn’t do that was because she wasn’t sure of the glass was too similar to the other colors in the window. One look told me that she could search for years and never find another piece of glass that would work better. By the time she left she had it finished. Just look at the great use of color throughout this window.

Ellen walked in right behind Jane and set to work on her lamp. She has a lot of it cut out already and by the time she left she had the background and half of the flowers finished. There’s really nothing that I can show you here in terms of a picture because everything is laid out piece be piece in a container waiting to be ground before it’s placed on the mold. This is going to be one of those projects that suddenly comes together all at once. And trust me when I say that when it does you’ll be very impressed! Here’s a picture of the original Tiffany version of the Clematis lamp that Ellen is making.

Next up we have a new student by the name of Tom who did his obligatory Stained Glass Butterfly. Like 99% of our students he had never cut a piece of glass but he handled his glass cutter as if he cuts glass every day. His butterfly turned out perfectly and next week we’ll have him working on an LSU window. Here’s Tom’s butterfly. Expect great things from him in the near future.

And speaking of great things we have Joey and Cheryl’s cabinet doors to show you all finished and inserted into the actual doors! The project was split between the two of them with Cheryl having completed the center Flower Window while Joey did the two Bird panels that bookend the Calalilies. I know we’ve posted pictures of them before separately and then ‘Photoshoped’ together to give you an idea of what they would look like installed, but this week we have the real deal. My hat’s off to both Joey and Cheryl for getting this finished so professionally!

Cheryl was working on a number of smaller projects this week which, like Ellen’s work, doesn’t exactly lend itself to photographing very well. Next week she’ll be working on her Street Address Window again (we ran out of glass and as luck would have it the order didn’t come in until the day after her class). Since Cheryl always has something planned and it didn’t slow her down at all. Here’s a ‘picture’ of Cheryl just for the Blog. My thanks go out to Danielle for providing the picture!

Joey was another one who came in and shocked me with his project. He’d finished cutting the remainder of the glass for his ‘Rooster-With-Attitude’ window and then proceeded to grind it all during class! The colors look great and the work is flawless. His attention to detail has alway been way above average and as you can see here it really shows. When you look at the picture below you’d never know that this isn’t the finished project! I’m not sure what it is that Joey will be working on next but he shouldn’t be afraid of tackling anything now. He’s earned his stained glass badge!

In a surprise visit we got to see Danielle this week as she popped in to see what was happening and to help out her mother for a bit with some of her wrapping. It was nice to see you again Danielle and don’t forget that you can drop by ANY time. I thought it was funny when she recognized so many of my standard lines that I spout off while teaching a new student (in this case it was Tom). It goes to show that she was paying attention when she was taking stained glass classes about a year ago!

The next night we had Gerald come in to work on his Pelican Window. He finished wrapping what he had cut and ground last week and then he worked on fitting a wire onto the lead line that separates the two bodies of the overlapping Pelicans. The wire will raise the solder line a little higher than the rest of the solder which will help create a dividing line that helps the viewer’s eye to keep the two birds separate. It’s a simple little trick that works wonders. Gerald has a few pieces of glass left to cut for his sky which will be easy enough but his water will be a bit of a challenge. He’s got a complex pattern drawn throughout the bottom of the window to show wavy, choppy water which will make it look more like an ocean rather than a smooth, still pond. As I always say, extra work always pays off. Here’s the window as it looks this week but just wait until you see it next week!

Jessie was in and finished her Horse window that she had started just before school began back in September. It may have taken her a week or so to get back into the swing of things but this week Jessie worked as though she never took any time off at all. Her soldering was wonderful and as you can see her window turned out perfectly. She brought her mother, Kim, with her this week and it was nice to catch up with her again and just do a lot of laughing in general. Jessie’s sister Amanda showed up as well to see what was happening. All in all it was a fun night all around. Jessie has big plans for a few more windows and will be doing an Owl window next. You’ll see the pattern here next week as well as some cut pieces of glass!

Last, but certainly not least, we have Mark’s window. This has that old-school Tiffany look about it. The use of green running throughout all the different leaves and then reflecting onto the rippled water makes the white flowers and birds stand out in direct contrast to everything else. And it works so well! Before Mark began grinding he cut the brown branch sections which leaves him with only the birds feet left to cut. Mark wrapped all the pieces he took home with him and he did a great job. This week he has fewer pieces to wrap while at home, but they are smaller and more difficult to handle than the ones he did last week. I have no doubt that he’ll do fine and I can’t wait to see this all ground and wrapped so we can see what the top will look like when the lead lines are added. Note that you can really see what the flowers look like (as opposed to last weeks picture) now that they are wrapped in copper foil.

And I think that covers it this week…

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

We’ve recently had a flood of new comments come in on finished windows that were made a year ago and the addresses that the comments came from were awfully strange. After looking into this we discovered that the latest thing for spammers to do is leave comments on Blogs that will redirect you to offending sites if you click on the comment. We’ve removed all the spam comments we could find and hopefully the problem is solved. Luckily it’s been happening to older posts rather than the newer ones .  Still, if you happen to see a strange comment with an equally strange email address (usually a string of random numbers and letters) next to one your pictures, don’t click on it. We’ll try to keep up on removing these nuisances but the only way to be sure that nothing gets through would be to turn the comments off (which I’d rather not do). Now that we have that out of the way let’s get down to what’s been happening this week.

Ellen has completed her Fireplace Screen and the end result is wonderful! It took a lot of work and patience to complete this but, as always, it pays off in the end. The picture below has the screen opened all the way so we don’t get the optical illusion of the water running downhill on the two end panels. Delphi is getting ready to do their next catalog and is having a contest where you can send in a picture of yourself along side one of your windows (it must be an original design). Ellen will be submitting a picture of her screen in hopes of making it into the next Delphi catalog! I hope she manages to get in to it. Her work would fit perfectly into the Delphi’s next catalog!

Mark continued working on his Birds and Flowers window and is still moving at a break-neck speed for a beginner. Look at the design and the workmanship that he has demonstrated and you’ll see that he’s already in league with our regular long-time students (who I think all do work well above what would be considered to be ‘average’). Mark has about half of this window ground and has taken the pieces home with him to start wrapping throughout the week.

Gerald finished cutting and grinding the rest of his Pelicans Window. In fact, the only thing left to do is cut the background and then the border. I suspect it will be ready to be soldered by the end of the next class. I have had an idea (something that Gerald did got me to thinking) for a way to help keep the two overlapping birds separate and will run it past Gerald next week to see what he thinks. We’ll keep you all posted when we see how it turns out. I still love the look of the wood posts in this window. They already look very real and have a 3D quality to them…

Joey almost finished cutting out his Rooster Window this week. He only has the face of the bird left to go and then he’ll be grinding (and he may get some grinding finished while he’s at home before the class next week– you never know).  I was very impressed with his cutting this week as he got a lot of very difficult pieces cut out without ever asking for any advice on how to go about cutting them.  In fact, I barely got to talk to him at all during class as he diligently worked away the night. The cutting on this project will most assuredly be finished next week. It’s colorful, complex, cocky and a great example of what Joey is able to accomplish on his own. I love the colors he picked AND the color placement. Great job!

Cheryl was hard at work on her Street Address Window. With her corners finished (and now wrapped) she set about grinding the numbers and then cutting and grinding the white background in the center of the window. The pattern has two borders but instead of having them next to each other they are separated by about 4 inches which leaves room for the borders to swing out toward one another and then intertwine in between. She’ll do the center first and then tack it together before joining the last border so she can easily transport the window. The center section is all cut but she’s in the process of grinding it.  Only 5 of the white pieces are in place in the picture below…

There’s always someone who ends up being written about last but we certainly don’t want that person to feel like the odd man out (or in this case the odd woman out!) After finishing the missing pieces of her horse’s mane Jessie wrapped all the border pieces of her window and got the zinc channel put around the edges. From that point on it was a refresher course in soldering for her (it’s been a few months since she’s done it last). It was a little rough at first but she’s getting a steady, smooth bead again after a little practice. You can certainly see how the window is going to look when it’s complete as it is practically finished at this point in time. She has to solder the back side and it will be ready to go home next week. Don’t let the numbers in the picture fool you into thinking there’s something written on the glass– they are actually on the board that Jessie’s working on which is showing through through the clear background that she used!

And that’s it for this week.  We’ll be back again next week with at least one completed project.

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks 

Ellen Had all the glass cut for her 3rd and final panel of her fireplace screen and spent most of the day grinding. She accomplished a lot today and managed to get just about everything finished but the sky. She hopes to make some serious progress on it sometime this week while she’s at home, but I think she’s made serious progress on it already. Ellen long ago reached the point where she expects a piece of glass to fit and to line up and look good as well. When people start taking stained glass classes there’s so much to learn that when a piece fits into place the student thinks they are finished. But fitting a piece is only half the battle. There are other things that a professional worries about as much as the fit of the glass. The orientation of the grain, the way the points of the piece line up with the glass pieces next to it and the shading of the glass are part of the equation of a great looking stained glass window. Look carefully at the shading of the tree in Ellen’s window and you’ll see that attention to detail. There’s a very good chance that this project will be finished next week.

Ellen is thinking about making a Tiffany Style Clematis Lamp next and I have no doubt that it will turn out perfectly!

Jane finished her window last week and is still awaiting word on one of 2 windows that people would like her to do for them. So she decided to do this birdhouse window that she had in a book she had purchased online. She had the pattern pieces cut and ready to be traced onto the glass when she came in and you can see what she accomplished in the picture below. I have to compliment Jane for not being afraid to alter the pattern that she’s working on to make it better than what it was originally drawn as. Minor details here and there needed some tweaking and Jane fixed them as she was cutting.

Fran’s Camaro window is all cut and ground and is ready to be wrapped. She had wrapped some of the pieces she ground last week while she was at home so she’s already got a head start on the process. She’s MUCH more comfortable with the grinder than she was last week and she’s getting the feel for figuring out what you can skim off of a piece to make it slid into place better. It all sounds rather cut and dry– you grind the piece until it fits into place, but there are little tricks that you learn along the way that help the process go much faster. Fran’s got a great window here and I’m sure she’ll be soldering it next week.

Cheryl, who finished working on her Franklin Foundation Hospital Window last week has started on something a little more close to home for her: a window for the front of her house showing her street address. The window is rather large but there are a lot of repeated elements throughout it so she’ll just take it one corner at a time. And speaking of corners, she has all four of the red sections cut and ready to grind. Here’s a picture of the pattern with some colors thrown in to show what the finished window will look like.

Joey finished the 3rd and final window of his cabinet door inserts this week. After he washed it, colored it and waxed it I managed to snap this picture of it.

And here’s a picture of the 3 windows side by side. We’ll have pictures of them in the actual wooden frames shortly so you can get the full effect of these windows.

Joey moved on to a large Rooster suncatcher that is so large (about 2 feet high) that you really have to call it a window. It will be made out of 5 different colors and Joey has all of the blue glass finished. That leaves 4 colors left to go! Here’s what he has finished so far.

Mark was in during an evening class this week and I have to say that his work has really impressed me. He picked a complex pattern for his first window and I’d have to say that he’s a good week ahead of where I thought he’d be in terms of progress. All his glass is cut and he even got 3 of the pieces ground before calling it a night! The window looks great already and I can’t wait to see it finished.

Long time readers will surely remember Jessie who took classes during the summer and then left to go back to school. Well she’s back and almost finished with the horse window she was working on when we saw her here last. She’ll be putting a green border on this window and will definitely be soldering it next week.

Gerald continued working on his Pelican Window and finished cutting all but the bill of the front (smaller) Pelican.  He’s been grinding his pieces as he cuts them so he’s moving faster than you may think. The pattern looks great, the colors are perfect and his attention to detail is superb.  He took it home with him this week so there’s no telling what he’ll accomplish while he’s at home.

That about wraps this up.  In fact, that wraps it up for the second time for me since I wrote this all up, uploaded the pictures and then had my computer crash while I was writing up Gerald’s progress.  So excuse the fact that a rushed through some of this and it’s posted late; it’s no fun rewriting something you’ve already written.  I guess the lesson I’ve learned is to save often!

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks