Sunday, January 3, 2010

Watching Eyes Hidden Cat


Original sketch by Gwyneth- 3¾" by 4" 1-originalsketch.jpg

I spent some of the recent winter break helping my 11 year old daughter Gwyneth create this stained glass panel. She was the designer and I was merely the fabricator. Wonderful experience, and I love the result.

  1-hiddencatfinalFULL-600.jpg
 full story below the fold...

Original Sketch to Working Drawings

I scanned the sketch, enlarged the panel and added lead lines and pattern numbers. 1-early.jpg

 The various working drawings at the bench. 2-oiginalsketch-withothers.jpg

Glass Selection and Cutting

Gwyneth cut about a third of the pieces herself. As for the other two thirds, she chose the glass and laid them out for me to cut. 3-partlycut3-580.jpg

 The panel was made up of all scrap handblown antique glasses, with about a third being flashed glass. 3-partlycut2-580.jpg 9-partlypainted2-580.jpg

Glass Painting

Gwyneth did all the painting. Most of it is done in the 'scratch-out' technique, where the individual piece of glass is totally covered with paint, allowed to dry, and the design is scratched out with a needle or scribe. This shows her applying the paint and shows a few pieces covered in paint and drying. 10-earlypainted1-580.jpg

In this photo all but a few are already scratched out. The all-black pieces in the upper right are the last ones waiting to be scratched into. 10-partlypainted5-580.jpg

 stained glass - it is a dirty business... 10-dirtybusiness-580.jpg

 ...and a dangerous one. Gwyneth's first stained glass related bandaid. A true right of passage. I feel so proud.
 11-bandaid-580.jpg

Glass Engraving

Of the 44 pieces in the panel, 29 are painted, 4 are left alone, and 11 are engraved. That is, they are flashed glass pieces engraved using a dremel tool with a diamond bit, and fire polished in the kiln. 11-engrave1.jpg

Copper Foiling

Gwyneth got her first try at copper foiling and foiled about 8 pieces. I did the rest. 13-foiling1-580.jpg

Assembly

13-prepforsolder-580.jpg
14-solder-500.jpg

 This is just after the patina was applied. I usually go for nearly a jet black on my own pieces, but in this case it seemed with the warm colors that a lighter copper patina was best. 14a-patina-580.jpg

the final panel again 1-hiddencatfinalFULL-600.jpg

Signatures

Gwyneth made all the creative decisions. I made suggestions, but she had the final say on all things. Sometimes she made decisions I would not have done if it were my work, but there were a few times she did it her way and it came out much better than what I was thinking. An interesting example of this is found in the way she signed the panel. I suggested she sign it in a conventional way, by choosing a spot in the lower right corner and painting in her initials, 'GDK'. She didn't like that and decided to use a very fine needle and scratch in little g's throughout the panel. You can only see them in the close up shots.

  WatchingEyes_G-sigs-1-600.jpg

WatchingEyes_G-sigs-3-600.jpg

WatchingEyes_G-sigs-4-600.jpg WatchingEyes_G-sigs-5-600.jpg

Gwyneth with the completed panel. 15-mask-G-580.jpg

No comments:

Post a Comment