More Butterflies
We have 2 new students this week and that means 2 more butterflies exist here in south part of Louisiana. 
But we’ll start this week’s update by looking at what Mark got accomplished during his visit with us on Tuesday.
Mark spent a long and productive day standing in front of the grinder grinding away at the pieces he’s cut out. This was his second full class of grinding but as you can see he’s getting places! There are a lot of pieces in his window so it is going to take some time to get it finished. I’m expecting that he’ll spend one more week at the grinder before he gets to take it home to wrap (and that will be fun also). Needless to say the window is looking wonderful. Just wait until you see it with the defining lead lines surrounding each piece. (Look at the detail in those flowers.)
We have another ‘bait and switch’ type tactic going on here at the shop this week as Jessie’s Owl project is being finished by her mother, Kim. From this point on we’ll be referring to the Owl that Jessie started as Kim’s project since she’s the one who will be finishing it in the next 2 weeks or so. It’s been a while since we’ve seen Kim in the shop but she hasn’t forgotten what she’s doing. The last time we saw the Owl it was all ground and waiting to be wrapped. Well, the wrapping was finished by Kim at home so when she came in this week she got it tacked together and then set out to get the first border around the window. She picked a clear glass with a heavy texture to it and will do the last border in a dark, solid color. I have 2 pictures here with the second one being a closeup that allows you to see the texture of the glass that’s been used for the inner border.
Joey came in and continued soldering the second side of his address window, but before he did that he added a final white border to make the window fit the opening it will hang in when it’s at his home. When the zinc channel gets put around this it will be the same exact size of the window it will be replacing. Luckily for us this means that he won’t need to add any kind of hooks to hang this from as the stained glass window will slide into the track that the original window came out of and lock into place. I just love easy hanging solutions and I’ll bet Joey does too! And I have to say that the final border has helped make the fancy red corners more visible. Don’t let the picture fool you into thinking that this is an average sized window–it’s actually almost 3 foot long.
Next we have our first butterfly from one of our 2 new students. Mary Lynn picked a light pastel blue for her butterfly wings along with a see-through gray body. She chose a clear head with a a strip of deep blue running through it (very much like a marble) and ended up with a finished butterfly that turned out perfectly. She had no problem cutting glass whatsoever and I expect to see some nice work from her in the coming weeks. She has her eye on an iris window design for her first big project.
And while we’re talking about butterflies we might as well move on to the other one that was made this week by our second new student, Janice. Like Mary Lynn, Janice had no problem cutting glass at all and you can see from her finished butterfly that her pieces fit together perfectly. She chose a deep teal/blue colored glass with a darker body and a light blue head. Her work was wonderful and I can’t wait to see her get started on her new project next week.
Gerald came in with his Rooster almost completely soldered so it was easy enough to get this window finished and out the door by the end of the class. We touched up the soldering, added some hooks to hang it by, gave it a few baths in the sink to clean it off and color it and then took pictures of the finished piece. The clear glass background worked out perfectly without having the repeating wire frame pattern detract from the Rooster itself. As always, Gerald did a fabulous job with his latest window. And wait until you see what he’s working on next!
And last but not least, we have Ellen’s current project. When we saw it last week the pieces were all cut out and waiting to be ground. This week it came in the door all ground and ready for wrapping. We’re calling this window the “Wrought Iron” window because that’s the look the pattern implies when you see it in person. Ellen has some thick lead lines running throughout the window (purposefully done) along with some lead inserts in the center panel. Now that everything is wrapped you can see copper coloring where the black lead will be next week. It’s a great design and I can’t wait to see it next week when it’s all tacked together. I have 2 views for you to look at: The first is the standard shot of the entire window and the second is a closeup of the center portion where all the work is. Remember that all the copper you see in the second picture will be covered with lead and then colored black. It’s going to look great!
And that about covers what happened this week. We may have 2 more butterflies to see next week along with Jane’s Moose window and Frans Rooster. And we hope that Cheryl’s back is doing better so that she can be with us next week as well!