So. I decided to take pictures of each step, mostly because I've never been good at photo-documentation, and am getting nervous about consistency when it's time to begin work on my thesis. Of course, I forgot that rather important fact until I'd already cut half the dang thing anyway. So this is Mr. Owl, he's a pretty simple creature, not many pieces, and none of the shapes are too difficult. I decided to do him in blues for the mosaic plate, as a nod to his nocturnal nature. His wings and the top of his little head are all going to be a darker, rich blue. To define his eyes and make them "glow" a bit, I decided that an amber ringed in a lighter blue would be perfect, the pupils of his eyes are just a hole that I drilled in the center of the piece and will fill in with grout later. His soft underbelly is going to be a lighter, purplish blue.
Even though this is a mosaic and I won't be using any copper foil or solder, I still had to grind the edges of each piece. It was a necessary step because I wanted him to have a specific shape, clearly defined, and because he's symmetrical. If his left half differs from his right, he's going to look lopsided and horribly sloppy. The background, which I'll probably do in varying shades of green, will be comprised of chunked scrap glass, and for that the grinder will be completely unnecessary, but for now it's my best friend.
You can really see why grinding is so important, especially on circles. I have a circle cutter, but most of the circles I use in my patterns are smaller than what the circle cutter can cut, and when I first started stained glass, I wanted to become proficient without the use of "shortcuts," so even though I have one, I've never actually used it. The grinder gets rid of the little nubs that come with cutting a circle, and provides a nice smooth edge.After each piece has been cut and been given a real quick trip to the grinder to take the razor edge off the glass, it's put back on the pattern so I can match it up with the cut lines and mark any minor adjustments that are needed before it's final grind. It's an essential step, especially in stained glass. In mosaics it's not as important unless there's a set pattern that's being followed. Because each piece depends on the pieces that surround it for its shape and fit, if one piece is off pattern even slightly, the whole work will grow off of it, and the finished piece will be horribly off or out of square.
After the pieces have been checked against the pattern and all grinding has been done, I piece it onto the pattern using straight pins (the pattern in taped down onto a ceiling tile, so that the pins can easily be rearranged and bite in deeply to hold the pieces securely). Most times when I'm doing a mosaic I don't use the tile and pins, but just glue each piece down as I go along. For the owl, I wanted a very thin and consistent grout line between each piece, and was afraid that if I glued each piece down as it was cut, I would run into issues with the grout line becoming inconsistent and the pattern shifting.And so that's it, this is what I have so far for the owl plate. I just need to finish cutting his body, then I'll glue him down, let him dry, and start on the chunk glass background, and at the same time I'm working on the cartoon for the large window. All in all, I'm happy! I get to play with glass while still working towards a pattern that won't be in danger of compromise due to impatience. Yaaay!
