Abstract Schmoo Shapes

Hey, everyone! I was in The Netherlands last week to meet with some colleagues, and at one point during the meeting I was idly doodling on my pad (as I tend to do) and drew this little design of sort of Schmoo shapes in a row.

After the ridiculously intricate and time-consuming design of the octopus, I thought it would be nice to have a relatively simple design that I could finish in a weekend. To try and make the curves as smooth as possible, I laid it out in the free drafting software Solid Edge 2D.

So, here it is:

The piece is 12" x 12". Unfortunately it's not a very sunny day here in Scotland, so the colours aren't looking as bright in the pictures as they do in person. The purple bit is a deep, grape-y colour, and the orange is Spectrum wispy glass.

Here's another view:

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I made a stained glass octopus!

UPDATE: You can see the finished, framed piece here.

Hi all! Good news: today I finished soldering the stained glass octopus that I've been working on for what seems like forever.

I still need to put the lead came "frame" around the outside edges, and The Scotsman has said that he'll construct an actual wood frame for the piece. I also need to do the final cleaning to get off the fingerprints and winkle the last of the flux out of all of the little nooks & crannies. The piece is about 16.5 x 11.7 in.

I was just so happy to get it (mostly) done that I wanted to post some pictures!

The stained glass octopus with some sun coming through it. I wish you could see it in person, it looks so much cooler than photos can show.

Here's the soldering in progress. It's all full of flux.

Stained glass octopus, reverse side. He kind of looks like he's doing the Safety Dance.

A little closer up on the tentacles

Tentacle action!

So, what do you think? Would you hang it in your window? Pin It Now!

Octopus in copper

Hi everyone!

I've been working on the stained glass octopus all weekend, and I finally got all of the frillions of little suckers and pieces foiled. I'm waiting on delivery of some black glass paint to do the pupils of the octopus' eyes. (Right now I've coloured them in with black sharpie for demonstration purposes.)

All coppered up!

All those little suckers took FOREVER.

I'll be soldering and finishing the piece next weekend. Whew! This one took a while. Pin It Now!

Octopus Progress: finally finished cutting!

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

Unfinished octopus.

Unfinished octopus who?

Unfinished octopus is happy to announce that despite being unfinished, at least all of those suckers are finally cut! Oh, my aching tentacles.

Hi everyone, yes, I'm still working on this never-ending stained glass octopus project. I did finally finish cutting it all out today, and even got a start on foiling.

If you recall, this is how the octopus was looking last week:

After being harangued by the Shouty Muse for the whole week, I decided the lower tentacle on the left needed to be longer, and speaking of creating multiple rods for my own back, I also decided that there needed to be another line of suckers on the left to balance the whole thing out. Why yes, I would like to do a whole lot more cutting on this piece! Thank you sir, may I have another!

New formula with 1/3 more suckers! 

So, yes. I finally finished cutting today. After much rejoicing at the prospect of not having to cut any more of those teeny little suckers, I got a start on foiling....all of those teeny little suckers.

Getting started on the copper foiling. This is going to take a while.

I really do love how the copper foil looks, though!

I knew this piece was going to take a long time, but I think I may have underestimated just how much time it was going to take. I sure do hope it turns out.

I think I'll name him Harold.

See you next time!

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More Octo Progress

Hey everyone! This weekend I made some good progress on the stained glass octopus I'm making. I ended up not working on it last weekend, because last weekend was sunny. In Scotland.I know, shocker! Thing is, when it's sunny out on a weekend in Scotland, it's kind of The Law that you have to do something fun outdoors. Because the next sunny weekend might come....never.

So, on both Saturday and Sunday last week, we took the boat out on Loch Lomond. Sunday we had a picnic on Inchconnachan Island (no wallabies sighted, but we did see some wallaby poo on the beach where we picnicked. We were able to positively identify said poo after we got home. Go ahead and Google "wallaby droppings," and you'll be presented with lots of images of the real article. God bless the Internet!)

Here's a view of one of the islands in Loch Lomond from our as-yet-unnamed boat:

A gorgeous day on Loch Lomond, The Trossachs

This weekend the weather went back to its normal dreich, rainy craptasticness, so it was totally on with the octopus.

Here's how far I got on Saturday:

Octo-progress!

And then I did a bunch more on Sunday:

More progress - note the "Sucko-matic" fume extractor the Scotsman built for me in the background.

Getting there - next up, the last tentacle with all of the suckers. Shudder.

That lower tentacle is probably going to need some re-working. I started getting tired and just jamming whatever shreds I could find in there, which Will Not Do. I should force myself to just knock off working when I start getting really tired. I just make mistakes.

Speaking of mistakes, here's a small FYI for anyone who is thinking about doing stained glass as a hobby: be ready to get lots of cuts on your hands. Lots. Seriously. When you work with glass, you start to look like a mad paper cut fetishist. Owie!

That's about all the news. See you next time, when I'll (hopefully) have that upper tentacle finished and the copper foiling underway!

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Octopus progress

Hi all, I made a bit of progress over the weekend on the stained glass octopus I started last week. One of the things that still perplexes me about cutting glass is how you can cut and cut for hours and it barely looks like you accomplished anything at all!

Although it doesn't look like it, I really did get quite a bit done. I plan to put lots more time toward it this weekend coming up. Just got to keep plugging away until it's finished.

First, I got started on the water background. I decided that the background needed to have a more emphatic design element to it, so I added a circle behind the octopus. The clear glass is Spectrum clear baroque, and the blue circle element is pale blue Spectrum baroque. I chose these because of the lovely swirls in the glass, so suggestive of underwater currents.

Hours and hours of cutting - looks like I barely worked on it at all!

Then I cut another one of the tentacles and added in the yellow eyes.

Yellow eyes - I plan to paint in the pupils.

Can't wait to get started on the little suckers. Except for the "can't wait" part. Eeep!

Wish me luck, and see you next time! Pin It Now!

Light Box, Octopus First Cuts

Hello there! Last weekend was my birthday and The Scotsman pulled out the stops. Among other presents, he built me a totally awesome light box for my glass.

New light box built by The Scotsman for my birthday. Best husband ever!

I love it! It makes it much easier to trace designs and see through darker glass to cut to a pattern.

If you remember, I mentioned that I bought a ton of antique art glass when I was back home in the States in June. I've taken pictures of just a few of the pieces I got. You can almost see how beautiful they are when they're pictured on the light box, but my usual caveat still holds true: pictures just can't do glass justice.

Here's the design I drew for my newest piece. As you can see, it's much simplified from the photograph I posted last time.

I started cutting today. Since I got a bit of a late start I haven't gotten as much done as I wanted, but I'm already really happy with the way it's coming along. As you can see, I chose a ring mottled dark red and white glass for the octopus' skin. 

As you might also be able to see, I added cut lines to the tentacles. These will make it easier (and in some cases, at all possible) to cut these. 

I'll post more next weekend when I've gotten more done!

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