Wednesday 28 February 2018

Stained glass class at Practicum

I didn't teach any leather classes this year at Practicum, but that freed me up to take an all-day stained glass class. I've never done anything like that before so it was a good chance to take the time to learn the basics.

My finger tips are still recovering from all the little cuts but I had a lot of fun. I wasn't able to get it quite done before court, but Sciath was nice enough to let me finish up afterwards so I went home with a finished project.

It's definitely the kind of thing I could see myself doing more of, since I can use pre-done patterns to do the designs rather than rely on my lackluster artistic abilities (unless people want stick figures on their stained glass, I could handle that. From that perspective its similar to leather tooling or silk banner painting.

That first time to break the glass is stressful for sure. I wasn't sure if I'd done it right and didn't want to put too much pressure on it and have it shatter. But it just kind of worked right by magic. :)

It was also the first time since grade 8 IA class that I used a soldering iron (although Avelyn tells me I have one in the basement with my dad's old tools). Not sure how good a job I did but everything is attached and it hasn't fallen apart so it must be a passable job for a first try. :)

So, I think I'll put this on the list of things I could pick up down the road. The challenge is I don't have the space in the basement to setup another workstation, and I don't think little bits of sharp glass on the workstation mixes well with leather. So, it may have to wait until we have a bigger space so I can set something up.

I did look into it and there are two stained glass stores in Ottawa, so tools and equipment would be available if I need to acquire some stuff.

Here's the finished project:

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