So last December, one of my favoritest people ever had a fantastic art show with a Kathryn, because she’s brilliant. But I’ll admit, when she first said mushrooms, I had to raise an eyebrow. Oookay, Kathryn. Mushrooms. Sure thing.
Yeah, I know better. It was, of course, totally awesome and her art is fantastic. (I admit to having a particular fondness for these guys. ATTACK!)
So, when I was looking for a new stained glass project to work on, and I came across a pretty neat pattern for a mushroom… well, it seemed like an easy choice.
I started working on this months ago. But I’m a procrastinator, and I have a zillion different crafts that I work on, and stained glass is one of the more complicated ones just in coordinating pets so that I don’t shoot glass shards at them, nevermind the fact that I’m still pretty new to stained glass. As it was, this was my first project that involved curves. Which meant I had some irritatingly frustrating moments. The stalk of my mushroom, for example, has both an inside and an outside curve. I’d manage to get one side perfect, and the other side would break. I’d get the other side perfect, and the first side would break. I’d get BOTH sides perfect, and when getting it to the right length, it would break. OH COME ON, THAT’S JUST A STRAIGHT LINE. I came to the conclusion that the gorgeous glass I was using was maybe not the most ideal and likes to break in the stupidest places, but such is glass.
Anyway, I had the pieces mostly assembled, and then… put it away for a while.
Then Kathryn posted that she’s having another art show at the Wallflower. Well fuck me, this is the perfect timing. I scurried back to my work table, cleared it all off, pulled out the grinder, shooed the dog under a table so as to avoid flying glass, and got back to work. On Tuesday night, I managed to finish off all of the pieces and get the glass copper foiled. Then on Wednesday night, I soldered, cleaned it up, added a black patina, and voila! Mushroom art!
Top Left: Cut, foiled & assembled.
Top right: Mostly done soldering.
Bottom left: Finished! With light behind to show off how it shiiines.
Bottom right: Normal look.
This is my third project ever, so I’m still working on finesse, but I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out.
YAY ART!
Mushroom mushroom mushroom BADGER BADGER!
(The opposite of this: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/badgers of course.)
Oh Donna! I’ve always had this little dream about maybe one day trying stained glass. Is it so diffisult? (Of course, I can only imagine curved lines when i think about those sorts of colours and textures… hum, might have to reconsider). Did you take any classes? If so, where and were they good? Love the mushroom. Good work. Cheers!
Christine Forget
The photo can’t capture the AWESOME that is the final project!! Thank you so much for this labour of curvy love. It was worth the hard work cause I love it. Thank you for the support, creativity & friendship. I am so lucky. <3
Christine: It’s persnickety and frustrating, but I’m still a beginner. :) My mom did utterly fabulous stained glass for years, she gave me a lesson last year (and all of her equipment) and I ran with it. I believe you can take lessons at Kona Glass on Knight & 33.