I received a nice note / photo from the adoptive family of my mermaid mosaic. I don’t often get to see the ones that swam away again, so this was a treat!
Mermaid at home
Tag: window
Recycling
It’s really nice to be able to use old, recycled windows in my projects. The down side is I spend a lot of time prepping the windows so they are suitable for the projects! I’ve been working on these two windows since I finished my fireball sun, and I still have a few days of painting to do.
I take old windows – these particular ones are one rectangle over another – and I get my husband to help me chop them in half. I then use one half with the frame for mosaics and cut the glass out of the other half for small projects like my ornaments / suncatchers / Rainbow Rows / SC Flag pieces.
Fireball Sun – Done!
Stained glass mosaic coated with resin in a recycled window. Approximately 13.5″ x 30″
Fireball Sun Poured
Today I finished filling in the small gaps in the blue sky background on this sun, which I decided to call “Fireball”. I didn’t glue the background glass in place (just the glass for the sun). That was foolish, but I did it because I was impatient and didn’t want to wait a few days before pouring the resin. If I glue the glass in place, I have to wait for it to completely cure / dry. The benefit is that there are a lot fewer bubbles when I pour the resin.
To get rid of the bubbles, I had to stand over the mosaic for a couple of hours and blow them with my heat gun. I ended up just running the heat gun over it every 5-10 minutes. Hopefully no more have popped up since I left it, but it seemed to be done with the bubble phase after about 1.5 hours. This is pretty long – it shouldn’t generally take that long to set, but I was very quick with the mixing today since I didn’t have any pigments, etc to mix in and I was only working on this one project. I used 16 ounces of resin and only had a very small residual amount left over.
Every sun needs some sky
So I spent a couple of days figuring out how to make the background, or sky, for this sun mosaic. I had planned on a completely different approach, but after looking at various types of glass, I decided that the background I had in mind was too “busy” for the glass I chose for this sun.
To help me make the decision, I set the whole window over large pieces of “sky” glass. I really had planned on making the background out of many, varied shades and types of blue glass, but ended up deciding that the iridized Spectrum (one of my standby favorites for lots of things) would be best against the multifaceted colors of the glass I used for the sun.
I spent today cutting the larger pieces for the sky / background. It will likely take a couple of days to fill in the smaller spaces between these.
A New Sun
It’s always fun to start a new project. It can be a challenge to decide what to do next when you’re looking at a plain window. I really like to do sun mosaics, and I have a neat piece of glass that just shouts “SUN!” to me, so a few days ago I measured the middle of the window and then figured out what size sun I thought would look good there. I cut the circle down with my manual glass cutter, then smoothed the edges with my saw and grinder and glued it in place. Today it was ready to be joined by some rays.
I free-form cut the longest rays that will go to the left or right of the ball with my manual glass cutter, then smoothed the shapes with my saw and grinder.
Rays emerging from the sheet 
Smoothing edges on the saw
Once I had a few cut out, I set them in place around the ball of the sun. I’m not worried about the small gap between the ball and the rays because I plan to add a second layer of glass in a circle around the edge of the ball when I am further along with the base layer of glass.
I plan to add a lot more detail in the background, but for now I want to get the major focal points in place around the sun. I haven’t glued any of the rays in place yet, but the ball of the sun is glued down.
I think I might try to not use any more of the glass I used for the main sun / rays in the rest of the background. The decision I have to make now is whether the rest will be various shades of blue or if I will add more yellow / orange / red flame accents. Once I fill in the entire background with glass, I will coat it with resin to bring everything together. While I was working on this, I rough cut two additional circles and some extra main rays in case I decide to make some additional, similar projects from this sheet of glass. While working with the extras, I stacked them together and really liked the look of the rays overlapping. That might be the next version of this – layered rays. The pieces get heavy when I use a lot of layers, but it might be a fun experiment.
Almost ready for resin
I had a few errant pieces of glass to glue in place today, but I was able to get a nice snapshot of how the mosaic will look in reflective light (in the evening). I’m really pleased with the look. The neat thing about the dichroic glass is your mosaic has two looks – the evening / night look (1st photo) and the daytime / bright sun look (2nd & 3rd photos). Even though I still have to pour the resin, I’m really happy with how this piece is shaping up.
More waves
I was able to make a few more waves Tuesday, but managed to really slice one of my fingers while grinding the glass, so I didn’t get as much done as I had planned. Today my finger is feeling better and I was able to make some more waves (this time I was smart and covered my fingers with band aids before I ground the glass for the waves).
I was able to fill in quite a bit of detail on the sea / waves after all. My next step is to wait for the mosaic adhesive to dry, then I will be able to hold the entire window up to a light source to check for areas I want to augment. My light tray only covers about a third of the window at a time and I need to see “the big picture”.
Once I’ve seen the fully lit window, I’ll be able to plan the finishing steps, which will be pouring the resin coating and then decorating some areas of the resin with glass chips / frit. That’s the part I still need to plan. I’m also considering adding a layer of glass around the edges of the sun’s rays (adjacent to the frame), though I haven’t figured out exactly what yet.
Making Waves
I spent most of the day Monday working on gluing down the pieces I had already cut for the rays of the sun, and making waves to start layering the ocean below the sun. First I rough cut some waves, then used my grinder to shape and smooth the edges.
After I got the above pieces ready, I realized that I would need to glue the dichroic glass I had cut and laid out for the suns rays before I started working on the layering for the waves, so I set out to do that.
Using Mac mosaic adhesive and a small paint brush, I spread a thin layer of adhesive onto each piece and then position it where I want it. I already did this step for the main ball of the sun and the first layer of waves last week.
Using a light tray to help me see what I was doing, I worked one row at a time from the inner row to the outer edges. I decided to place the pieces a bit closer together than I previously had them laid out, so I had to rearrange some and also cut quite a few more squares.
Once I had all of the rays glued down, including the smaller filler pieces at the edges, I started gluing the second layer of waves in place.
I will need to make quite a few more waves, but I at least got a start on them today. Gluing the rays in place took most of the day. I really want the mosaic adhesive on the rays to have plenty of time to cure before I pour the resin, otherwise they will be cloudy.
Hopefully I’ll have time on Tuesday to put some additional waves in place. I also need to plan how / if I will embellish the resin when I pour it. I think I would like to do something at least around the edges of the frame.
Sunset and water
I needed to cut some more dichroic squares to fill in the rest of the background on the sunset window, and I got some time this afternoon, so I worked on that.
I filled in as I cut, leaving the smaller pieces I will need to cut to fill in the very edges for later. I have been having second thoughts about the overall look of this the past several days, so I haven’t glued anything in place yet. I also worked on the water / waves underneath the sun. So far I’m pretty pleased with the look of the waves. Now the challenge will be gluing the waves in place without jostling the rest of the pieces around too much.
The colors of this glass when the light table is underneath the window are surprisingly bright. I love working with this dichro glass. I am hoping the look of the blue squares I added on the edges today will have the effect I’m going for, as the reflecting color of the dichroic coating is metallic red on these pieces as opposed to silver / gold on the rest of the sunset’s rays.
I tried to get some photos with the light table off and a bit more reflective light, but it’s pretty challenging to do with my phone in this lighting. Later on I’ll get my husband to help with the photos, as he’s got better equipment and a lot more experience taking photos.
I still need to glue down these pieces, then start cutting smaller pieces to fill in the gaps, especially around the edges and between the waves. I might try using some decorative flakes in the resin when I pour it, but I’m several days away from getting to that point right now. At least my confidence is up quite a bit now that I have most of the window filled in. I was procrastinating because I was afraid it would look too simplistic, but the progress I made today has made me more satisfied with the overall look. I will probably layer the waves to give them more texture, so they will have more depth (no pun intended).