Also, my little brother recently graduated from college, and I made him a stained glass piece that used some photos he took of his campus.

We had a really great teacher – Joseph Cavalieri – and I learned a lot. He is currently an artist in residence at my favorite place in NYC, the Museum of Art and Design, and working on some cool pieces incorporating the illustrations of Robert Crumb. Joseph showed us some of his work and actually worked on a piece while we were in class.
Everyone in the class was very talented – lots of painters heading into glass for the first time, and a few (like me) glass people hoping to begin to incorporate painting. You can see everyone’s work stacked in the kiln here.

This is the finished panel I made:

I started working with sketches of ballerinas a few months ago, and thought this panel would be a great opportunity to play with the silhouettes as well as translucence and layering.

I’m mostly please with how it came out. Some of the painting ended up being a little bit blotchy to my taste, and if I was to redo this panel, I would probably simply stick with black enamels instead of playing around with blue. Also, some of my favorite bits are sandblasted on, and are only really visible from the correct angles.

I also made a couple test pieces that incorporated my swirling doodles I do a lot of while watching television. They turned out really well, and I definitely plan on exploring that a lot more.

One final thing – I forgot to post a picture of the stained glass panel I had been working on prior to this! I finished it up last weekend while watching the World Cup final.

It turned out really well and is now hanging in my office window. Now that its back to work for me I’ll be spending more time with my Study in Clear ;O)

Until next time…

Ive been VERY busy lately, just not with much that is interesting for anyone reading a blog about crafting! I have a bunch of half finished projects I’d love to share with y’all if I ever complete them, and I’ve added one more to the bunch.

In two weeks, I am taking a stained glass course with Joseph Cavalieri, perhaps best known as “that guy that makes the stained glass windows with characters from the Simpsons.

(borrowed from Joseph’s Flickr account)
While I love those pieces, I have to admit I’m most excited to learn some of the techniques he uses, such as screenprinting on glass, airbrushing, and etching with a sandblaster. To get THERE, though I need to make sure I can remember how to cut and copper foil a project on my own!

Thats where the above comes in… I’ve been wanting a glass piece for my office at work, and so in short bits over this weekend, I’m hoping to slap this small stained glass panel together. Because the pieces include only straight lines, it was very fast to cut out. But before I can grind or copper tape it, I need to do some stuff for work… check y’all later!

If you ask her, my mom will claim that she is not artistic. This is not the truth, although she does not intend to lie. She seriously doesn’t think she’s any good at art, even though she can draw, is a great watercolor painter, and has made fabulous porcelain Christmas decorations.

Regardless, I went home for her birthday last week and talked her into taking a glass class with me at Hot Glass Houston. She was a little bit nervous, I think, as she was the only one in the class that had never cut glass before, however, she intently took notes and really enjoyed herself. Our class was taught by Donna Sarafis, who recently won first place in the 2010 Delphi Art Glass Festival. (If you are into glass fusing, I highly suggest taking her class – she is a great teacher!).

One great advantage my mom had over the rest of us in the class is her detailed knowledge of botany. My mom is an expert gardener and knows a ton about trees, their structure, and how they grow.

On the left side, we have Mom’s fabulous, structurally correct tree. On the right, we have… well… mine. Lets just say experience in glass does not give you the edge when you’re trying to make a realistic portrait of a tree. After this class, I am definitely going out to buy a book on painting and composition ;o)

And for Mom’s birthday, I made her this bracelet – from gold-fill beads and green lampworked beads with 24k gold foil which I made at UrbanGlass over my little “stay-cation.”

Happy birthday, Ma!

So this is what I’ve been doing with my Stay-cation… lately I’ve had my eye on these prints at Anthropologie of giant butterflies in pastel colors. Unfortunately, they’re insanely expensive – nearly $700 a piece.

So, I’ve decided to do something thematically similar, but in my own way. I’ve been making butterflies in fused glass ;o) Eventually there will be nine 6″ panels which I will copper foil together into a 1.5′ x 1.5′ window panel.

Right now I’ve got 2 panels complete, and the one pictured above fusin’ overnight… will update again (hopefully) soon…. if not, see you in a couple months ;o) ha!

Some doodling, a screenprint that Erin and I have been dreaming up for ages (Pride and Prejudice really *did* ruin us for real life…), and the results of a stained glass class I took a few weeks ago.

Anyhow, I’m on a little stay-cation right now, and I’m doing a bit of crafting now, so hopefully I’ll have much more to update y’all with soon!

that is until now.

Third ward went well. Alison and I both had better sales than we did at Bust only a week prior. My only complaint was that there is NO HEAT there and we ended up freezing our little hind ends almost clean off!! We were fortunately seated next to Alyssa, who on top of being insanely talented, is hilarious. We tried hard to keep ourselves warm via laughing but, what can you do… (Alyssa’s pottery is below, but I was unfortunately unable to get a photo of her sense of humor…)

As an aside, I sold Leavin’ on a Jet Plane to this lovely customer right here… she gives stereoette two thumbs up!

We survived craftacular!! Okay, not our greatest show, sales-wise, but we did have a ton of fun. We both introduced new displays… was Alison’s half of the booth cute or what?? When we do our other holiday show next weekend, I think that I’ll have to make my side of the display taller (as to actually be eye level). Also, hopefully I will accomplish having smaller hair.

I got some great feedback on my larger glass pieces, and now know that people seriously might buy them if they were set up for hanging on a wall. Curiously, I didn’t sell any cufflinks and those are normally my best sellers. Though sales were soft, I correctly predicted most of the items that sold, except for this one… maybe its just me that finds the cloud and airplane combination insanely adorable??

Must be… ;o)

The week after Bust Craftacular, Alison and I will be vending at the Brooklyn-Based craft fair held at 3rd Ward. We’d love you to be there!

Mark your calendars, ladies and gents, because Stereoette and King Popcorn are making yet another joint appearance at this year’s Bust Craftacular on December 6th…

guess this means i have to get craftin’, eh?