Project in Progress: Medieval Candle

My current project is a first foray into glass plating. This piece is quite small, but has three layers and 80 pieces in total.

This page from the instructions shows the final piece as it should appear (top image), with several textures and shadows. Notice also the pages from an illuminated manuscript (lower image) that appear in the book within the piece. I liked this effect, which is produced by affixing a transparent copy of the image to the back of the clear front glass.

I've completed cutting and grinding the pieces in the first layer. It's remarkable how visually unappealing it is, but that must be a part of glass plating; the piece will be odd-looking until you finally view the finished product with backlighting.

Notice that the glass of the background appears much more orange than in the picture above. That is an odd aspect of this particular glass - when viewed with backlighting, it really does appear as a mottled, pale yellow.

This piece is going much faster than the Bird Flower project, and I may be finished with it in 2-3 weeks!

Project Complete: Bird Flower Painting

I'm finally done with this project and I'm satisfied with how it turned out. The solder lines are much smoother than I'd feared. It generally has a professional look, at least to my non-professional eye. The most frustrating step was actually installing the wooden frame. I've learned something important about guide holes for screws... and how wide they should be.

Here is the project after I had finished foiling every piece with 7/32 or 3/16 inch strips of foil. I had to evenly wrap all the edges of glass so about 1 mm of foil overlapped off the edges onto both the front and back of the glass. When two foiled pieces are then placed alongside each other, this creates an "I"-shaped support for the lead solder.

[Click images to enlarge]

This is another close up of the bird section, all foiled this time:


And here is the finished piece. I'd like to get a better shot of it eventually, since this image doesn't show any of the subtleties of the glass whorls and distorts the lighting. The piece is a little more cartoony than I was going for. I think this effect comes mainly from the flat green of the leaves. I should have used an art-glass for the basic leaf color instead, to create a more organic effect.

Glass Endeavors Art Show

I'm hoping to have my Bird Flower project done for the Art Show at Glass Endeavors in a couple weeks. Stained glass enthusiasts from around the Twin Cities can submit projects, which are judged by an independent panel in several categories, including beginner, advanced, mosaic and fused glass. There are prizes, a reception, and other happy stuff.

I'm actually done foiling and soldering my Bird Flower project, and mainly need to patina it and get it into a wooden frame for extra reinforcement. Laziness has led me not to post about each step, but I'll do a final post when I'm done. It's exciting to be almost done.

Technically, I should be calling this project a "Flower Bird Painting" since that's the official translation of the style of Chinese art. See this page for a description of the classical style I'm referring to.