Rainy Day Creations

The past 10 days or so has been particularly wet here at Hedgelands! Of course I had a week's leave and had planned to do gardening work - if for no other reason then to make it easier for our resident roe hind to come up to the house to have her twilight feasts.

I can safely say we are a lot more relaxed about this sort of raid then we used to be. However, the weather with the exception of one brief afternoon has not favoured strimming, weeding or any kind of gardening at all. So I had quite a lot of time to look at my stash and ponder.

Art glass panels update

Copper foil panels are relatively undemanding to put together at any pace you like with the exception of the soldering, cleaning and patinating phase. I personally like to do this in one session. For a smallish panel this will take a few hours - a larger panel can take as many as five.

Now it isn't strickly necessary to do this and I know of quite a few talented artisans, especially those who make the lampshades, that soldering is done over days. But I am by nature an impatient person so I like to start and finish in one go.

Of course this requires the luxury of unhurried time - no soldering before work in the afternoon or a shopping trip or appointment. A rainy day when your plans have been undone is perfect weather for soldering (so long as you have a reasonably bright light to work under).

Gothic Arch Design

Sorry, I don't have a better title for this panel at the moment. The foiled piece on the layout board doesn't really give a good indication of what the finished panel will look like. But a lot of the enjoyment and surprise of working with art glass is the transformation of the various materials to make the final piece.

I have to say I am very pleased with this piece. I've used some interesting types of glass in it including a glass jewel, a cut rondel, cobalt sunburst glass and my absolutely favourite clear Tatra antique glass with the exception of some clear/frosted lizard glass and a handmixed blue streaky glass.

Some of you might be wondering why I take images from so many different angles. It might seem a bit excessive (actually I have left out the back view) but many of my creations are offered for sale on-line. I feel very strongly that a potential buyer will want / needs to see the piece from as many angles as necessary to give a fair impression of the item. This is particularly the case with my art glass work as I can't display many of them at face to face exhibition or sales events.

The landscape leaded piece sits on the layout board waiting for me to feel able to move it to the next stage which is leading up. I still haven't resolved a few details about its construction. I do have the cabinet leads, I do have the 'U' shaped edging, I don't have the putty (!). So whilst I dither about ordering the putty and worry about whether the edging is necessary the pieces of glass sit waiting.

Stash Explorations

Well it hasn't been all about art glass during my gardening week off. I also played a bit with my stash. I got some lovely rhodochrosite 10mm cabochons from firemountaingems recently. This is a stone that I have been meaning to use for quite some time. It is, however, a relatively expensive stone and not as widely available as some.

I originally planned to use these cabs in an 'altered' bracelet design. I will still make the bracelets but will use the 4mm pearls and lapis lazuli instead of the rhodochrosite.

I have what seems to be a ton of scrap silver wire and fair few silver sheet scraps that you keep just in case that one piece is key to the completion of a future piece of jewellery. Anyway, in an idle moment - not wishing to start a session of knotting just then - I poked around the scrap sheet metal glass and pulled out all the bigger pieces to see if they might make something interesting.

There were a lot more pieces there then I thought and they were plenty big enough to use for small pendants. I first fiddled around seeing if I could create a rolled over bail for each and for five of them I could manage to make two. This was looking very promising.

In the end, with a little bit of trimming, sanding, smoothing, hammering and soldering I managed to make three mini pendants which I think look interesting together and a five linking panel bracelet.

I particularly like the gorgeous soft pink of the rhodochrosite with the angular shapes of the slightly altered scrap pieces of sterling silver sheet. A beautifully rounded soft shape would be lovely but I like the contrast - who says pink can't be dangerous?

Better weather for the weekend?

Well we are supposed to have better weather this weekend. The wind has died down and so I fear the grass won't dry sufficiently for a good strimmer cut. Maybe some small hedge trimming instead . . .

New adventures in polymer clay coming soon!