Today I unwrapped the backer glass, put it in place over the pattern on my work table, and started cutting pieces of glass from the far right side of the pattern.
Backer glass laid out over the patternThe backer glass is thick and you can see the layer of laminateThe medium gray glass and some of the pattern for it
I don’t have a piece of medium gray glass that is long enough to make some of the pieces of the pattern. I will likely deal with that by abutting two pieces of the glass as closely as possible.
It would take three pieces from this glass sheet to make it long enough for the pattern pieceMedium gray on the left, light gray on the right
I will be cutting the glass from only the white parts of the pattern (the orange cutting lines will be removed) so there will be a slight space between the pieces.
A few of the light gray pieces cut and set in place
Something I didn’t anticipate and have yet to encounter before today is that some of my art glass really is not flat. That will likely cause bubbles in the resin underneath the pieces even if I glue them in place. A thicker layer of glue really isn’t good (to fill in the gap) because it can be visible from the back side of the piece, so I will have to think about this issue.
Today I picked up the clear backer glass for the project from Charleston Glass and Mirror. It’s heavy, but not unmanageable. The interesting development is that I sent photos of the darkest gray glass piece to the owner of Blue Heron Glass here in Charleston and he thinks he recognizes it and ordered me a sheet! That is great news as I don’t have a large enough sheet of it for all the dark gray pieces. He is the Glass Detective.
This week I finished marking all the pieces of the pattern with their intended color codes and ordered the 31″ x 48.25″ backer glass from Charleston Glass and Mirror. They recommended laminate which is apparently stronger than tempered. Hopefully I will have it early this week. In the meantime, I can start cutting out the pieces of the paper pattern I will use to guide myself on each piece of glass as I cut it. I think I will also visit Mike at Blue Heron Glass because I don’t think I have enough of the darkest glass. Hopefully he will have something on hand that is similar enough to fit the bill.
Dark glass (reflected light)
Dark glass on the light tray
Sometimes it’s hard to believe this is the same piece of glass when viewed in different lighting.
On the left is the darkest glass I’m using in the project. It looks like it is black with white swirls when viewed in ambient light. However, when the light is shining through it (as on the light tray on the photo on the right, above), it is a beautiful shade of gray.
Both copies of the pattern – color coded
I think I will work from the right side of the pattern over to the left, since it is the furthest from where I can reach on my work table. That means I will cut the pattern pieces on the right side first, then work my way to the other edge.
So I had to clear off most of my work table for the pattern for this next window project. This will be going into a large window (31″ x 48″) for privacy in a powder room. We discussed the glass to be used over the weekend and settled for art glass in shades of gray, white and orange (no clear). I have to special order the clear backer glass that I will use to mount the individual pieces in place. I had considered making this with lead or copper foil, but after researching issues of strength with a window this size and discussing with my friends who will take this home, this will be a resin pour! The size will bring some challenges along with it because I will need to be able to reach all sides of it when I pour the resin, but I think it will be a fun project.
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 installed in a window 9.5″x30″ stained glass mosaic set in resin. – still one of my favorites!
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.
Scraping the old paint
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.
I fill the holes with outdoor patch / fillerSand down the surface after patchingWipe down and paint all the surfaces of the wood frame
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.
Resin pouredBubbles!
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.
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.
I chose the glass on the right
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.
Now to cut it into a zillion pieces!Starting to fill in the sky
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.
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.
Just a fiery ball of glass in a recycled 13.5″ x 30″ window.
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.
Adding the main rays
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.
Main rays of the sun laid out
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.
