Post edited 11:13 pm – October 23, 2011 by quasi

I want to do a panel (not a full sized window) featuring a local park gazebo made of stones much like the old stone buildings in UK.  But gosh what a lot of tiny pieces that would be!  Before I start playing with various amber and dark nuggets (flat side out), which wouldn't look right because nuggets are not the size variation of stones that make up an old wall, is there a glass that could give me a good hint of that effect?

On the other hand, nuggets, stone wall, 3D structure, hmm. 

But it would be fun to do in a panel, but not if it means a zilion pieces half a square inch each!

heavily rippled swirly glass maybe?

No beach within couple hundred miles.  I could break bits off my nrighbors swimming pool edge?  Interesting idea for another day.

I LOVE the Youghgheny Vernelle linked to, add some back-side bits of copper foil plating to add shadows so it looks more like a pile of stones?  (I think I learned more from Tony than I realized!)

Post edited 12:12 am – October 27, 2011 by quasi

I was reading the archive (THANK YOU ANGEL for keeping the archive, I was amused that it doesn't go back as far as my first appearing with such extreme ignorance that some thought I was trolling) and remembering a lot because of that.  I can see I tried to do too much too fast, and was focused on the craft, the technique, which is of course essential.  Tony wanted us all to pursue the art, be innovative, most of that discussion was way over my head.  I can learn some from the archives now, but there's a lot he told me that I wish I remembered. Sigh.  I guess what matters is not the details of how he did any particular thing, but the attitude of "try it"!  Find a way, innovate.

When I was there a week we fought over whether he was going to teach me foil (my goal) or lead (his insistance).   The (very small) panel I came home with is done all in foil, and then the foil lines are overlaid in lead because Tony prefers the lead look.  The fish has a dichroic glass eye plated on top.  To our disappointment, dichroic doesn't work when layered.  Or this one doesn't, no dual effect.  Then he added a strip of rebar on the back even though it's only about 6 by 8 inches. Everything one can do, in one tiny panel.  Well, no rust.

But some of the powerful learning aspects in making it (a half afternoon project when we were annoyed at each other in close quarters) were accidental.  I guess my gloves were fluxy, I couldn't get a piece of foil to stick, Tony was fussing at me to hurry up, finally it boinged into my head foil doesn't have to stick, it just has to be somehow propped into place until it gets solder to hold it.  So I grabbed the iron and got a bit of solder on it, and somehow from that little incident picked up a relaxing about glass, stopped overstressing about doing stuff "right."  (Other than safety).

Half an hour before that Tony had tossed me a box of scrap and said make a fish – I started trying to draw a pattern and he said you don't need a pattern to do a fish!  (As if I know what a fish looks like?)  Disbelieving, I maneuvered some pieces together, cut as needed (it wasn't one of your wonderful scrappies, Graham, it was a panel) and somehow formed a fish!  With no pattern!  Unbelievable.  Not that Tony liked my fish, he said the shape was wrong, and fixed it, without a pattern!

Again, something freeing, not so much in that instant but longer term.  Hasn't occurred to me to try to create a pattern for my current project, better to move pieces of glass around until I like it.  Hey, it's a small semi-open, not a Victorian panel.  But still, it's about the community I live in – like many parts of Texas it's an official disaster area right now because of wildfires, hundreds of wildfiires in the state this summer, square miles of forest and ranches and houses burned.  Dark glass with a bare wire tree in front (Bare trees here!  Like in a Northern winter, not a Texas summer), behind the smokey glass is colored glass that exztends out beyond the dark glass, maybe another, smaller bare wire tree behind the colored glass (I'll see what I think when I try it), the smoke and damaged trees fade in the deternmination to rebuild a living future .  Something like that, sounds better than it will look because I'm not particularly skilled yet in design or glass craft, but Tony insisting I make that fish without a pattern is why I CAN attempt this statement-in-glass!