Faking glass and green dolphins
Feb. 18th, 2011 08:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marinessI first saw glassblowers in Venice.
In my memories, it's also the first time I saw magic.
The men put sticks into hot fire, drawing out something that was red and gleaming and – it seemed – liquid fire. And then, from that, they would start to pull at the fire, twisting, pulling. Other colors would emerge and then – this was the magic – a little horse would come out. Or a flower. Or a shoe. Or a vase. Once the glassblowers snipped off little pieces of purple glass, all glittering, and gave one piece to my brother and another piece to me. I still have mine. And I still have the horse I was allowed to get – green, since green was my favorite color that day (it changes, but is never orange). Only one horse, not more, because my parents were afraid that I would break the others, a prophecy that alas proved all too true: that horse is in my room right now, in the shelves across from me, with one foot missing, to remind me of magic. And breaking things.
It's not really a surprise, I guess, that I fell in love with glass blowing and glass art and can spend hours sitting in front of glassworkers and that even hours spent in front of stained glass cathedral windows listening to extraordinarily dull and frequently factually incorrect lectures on tympanums couldn't quite destroy this love (although it made me considerably less fond of Romanesque architecture, but that's another saga.) I want to do that, I found myself thinking.
I remembered, too, the little "stained glass" kits I had when I was a kid – when you had a metal frame, and you dropped little colored balls in it, and put it into the oven, and, yay! Stained glass. Of a sort. That had been fun and worth doing again, even if not precisely a high level of creativity.
So, when our town catalog flopped into our mailbox, coincidentally while I was trying to think of ways to get myself out of the house and doing something new and meeting more people, offering a glass art class, I had to sign up. I didn't quite tingle with excitement, but my mind thought of all of the happy things I could do with glass. The term, I realized, was rather vague. Would we be making stained glass? Glass jewelry? Glass art pieces? Or – realizing how unlikely this was for an introductory glass art glass in a community center in a small city that has not exactly shed a small town feel – would we actually be doing glass blowing?
As always, reality rather rudely intruded into these lovely ideas. Along, of course, with hurricanes. Potential ones, that is.
The instructor was a commercial custom glass art installer, one of the people responsible for putting "stained glass" in Hogwarts. Before you get images of a cheery guy on a stick yelling "Accio Pretty Glass," this would be the Universal Studios Hogwarts, and what Universal Studios wanted, quite beyond tourists, was stained glass that would meet Orange County and state of Florida hurricane wind guidelines.
In other words, not stained glass at all.
Actual stained glass consists of pieces of colored glass carefully leaded together in a pattern or a picture. The state of Florida is not exactly against this, but would like to point out that in the presence of 120 mile per hour winds, especially in high buildings like Hogwarts, the glass and leading have a tendency to shiver and shatter and then fly through the air cutting people. Unhappy about this, Florida has banned this in outside windows and doors and the like. (You can do whatever you want on the inside.)
This actually made commercial glass artists happy, because all of that making and cutting and pouring colored glass and leading takes lots of time, and it would be considerably easier if this could all, just, you know, be faked, the way it is in certain cheaper and other establishments elsewhere. And, as it turned out, stained glass can be quite easily faked. Here's how you do it:
1. As with traditional stained glass, create the pattern. Unlike traditional stained glass, you can deviate from this quite a bit, as I'll be explaining, but it helps to know more or less where you are going.
2. Pick a piece of hurricane proof plexiglass or tempered glass that meets Florida construction standards. If, that is, you're in Florida. Non Florida residents are under no obligation to meet construction standards. In South Florida and Tampa, residents should be aware that the glass will need to be cut commercially (all that shattering again) but in Orange County our freewheeling ways allow us to cut our own glass. Yes, we are rebels here, I'm telling you.
3. Put the pattern on a nice white table or if you have one a glass table that light shines through, and put your piece of glass over it. If you are me and need to have this at an angle because standing is problematic as is getting up and down and leaning over the table, use tape.
4. Take pieces of colored acrylic sheeting and cut them to the pattern. Basically, you cut out a piece that's kinda close to the size that you want, and then you put the acrylic over the pattern and the glass, and use a nice razor knife to cut out the shape.
5. Moisten the glass and the piece of acrylic.
6. Remove the backing from the acrylic and paste the acrylic on the glass. Use a squeegee to push out all of the water.
7. Hold up the piece of glass to the light. See! Fake stained glass!
The acrylic in question is translucent and deliberately faked to imitate the swirls and natural flaws of glass, although you can also get sheets of acrylic without as many swirls, if you want. It's all up to you, because, as the instructor tried to say, we might not be making actual glass or anything, but, we could still be creative. Even if all we were ACTUALLY doing was GLUING PIECES OF PLASTIC to glass.
Sigh.
So, we – me and the only other student, a very nice woman who was planning on adding customized glass panels to her bathroom doors, started making our designs.
I should pause for a moment and point out that although I like to draw, I am – how does one put this – not very good, which is one major reason why I don't talk a lot about art on this blog – that, and I know I have at least three artists reading this who would all look at my art and say, in pitying statements, well, well, which is one major reason I haven't gone for a career in fantasy illustration, although, well, I like my dragons. In an attempt to improve, however, I have taken the occasional art class, which means that I can draw simple things, if pressed. The other student in the class was well beyond me – she works as a painter and interior designer.
So neither of us were precisely art novices.
I should also note that the instructor had never actually taught a class before, which...led to problems. On day one, he assured us that we would be making two pieces of glass art – one on plexiglass, the other on actual glass – and we would spend the first class making our designs. This…went poorly, because I figured that if we had only six classes and had to make two pieces of art, I should go quickly, and the other student had already brought her planned designs. (I may have mentioned that she was a bit advanced.) Her only question was what colors would be available and what installation he would recommend.
So, while they were chatting about that, I drew a couple of little dolphins based on a picture in my little iTouch. The instructor paused and came over to take a look.
"You can draw dolphins!"
I felt this was perhaps overstating the situation.
"But you do not have any lines!" he added. "You need lines! Lines from the dolphins! To show where the dolphins are moving! And to have more different pieces of color everywhere. Lines! Lines!"
"Maybe my dolphins aren't moving?"
"Lines!"
Not feeling up to fighting this, I put in lines. We both finished early and looked up at him expectantly. I figured I should start attaching plastic things since, after all, I would be – in theory – making two pieces of art. But not so much. He assured us we would cut and attach plastic things next class and dismissed us early, clearly surprised that people interested in glass art would have any thought about design.
The next class was Coloring Time. I felt – and I did not think this was an unreasonable thought – that I could make my dolphins grey and the water behind them blue. Not, I admit, my most creative coloring moment, but I readily admit that I am nothawkward. Also the dolphins in my iTouch (from SeaWorld) were grey so I figured I could just go with the flow. And, just blue. The instructor did not want me to have just blue. I had to have several blues.
I picked a blue. I cut my piece. I stuck it on the plexiglass. I cut. "Next piece," I suggested.
"You're...done?"
I decided not to point out that given that I was just tracing my lines with a razor blade, which is not as difficult as it sounds (the razor had a nice firm handle) that, yes, I was done. So I cut a couple more pieces and razored them. It was all going very well except for one small problem: in order to do this, you do need to have your glass (or, plexiglass) over a light table; otherwise, you can't see your original lines and can't trace the razor blade over them. And we had only one light table for two of us.
Since I was tired anyway, I vacated the table for the other student and left early, figuring I could finish up in the next class and start up my next piece.
Alas, at the next class, my original plan for grey dolphins was kinda wrecked when the instructor failed to bring a grey that matched my blue already on the glass. (Specifically he barely had grey acrylic.) The other available colors were blue or green.
"I could make pink dolphins," I said, trying to make the best of things.
"Dolphins aren't pink."
"Some are," I noted. "I don't know of any that are green."
"There are no pink dolphins."
We sidetracked for a little discussion about Amazon river dolphins (Inia geoffrensis) and Chinese pink dolphins (Sousa something or other, and last I heard the species genetic classification is under investigation and dispute anyway so we'll just leave it there.)
Fun though this was, my dolphins did not look anything like Amazon river dolphins and I did not feel up to explaining Chinese pink dolphins to others, so, I made my dolphins nice and green, because, well, I'm a fantasy writer, and in some lights in the Everglades dolphins can look green. Go with it. I razored out my little dolphins and was assured – assured – that the next class I would be adding in the nice leading/soldering and could plan out my next piece.
(The instructor was also very sad that I didn't go to great length to squeegee out every single one of my air bubbles between the acrylic sheeting and the plexiglass, this on the basis that no one at Chartres bothered to go to any length to squeeze out their bubbles, not that anyone was going to be mistaking this for a piece of Chartres glass.)
It will surprise no one to hear at this point that the instructor did not bring the leading to the next class, or that he confessed, at this stage, that he didn't have glass for my next piece. I could of course get it myself from Lowe's, and spend the fifth class putting his plastic on the glass, but I was fairly certain that a sheet of glass, no matter how well tempered, was not going to survive a trip on my trike, much less a trip on my trike AND a trip across the current dirt road and massive line of holes that calls itself State Road 50, which meant a ride. So, I spent the fourth class doing nothing, and planned to spend the fifth class soldering my first piece and putting plastic on the second, which would have worked nicely except that I had to cancel the fifth class thanks to weather.
I headed to the sixth class on my scooter in a rather dismal mood, but figured, what the hell, I could solder the last piece and bring it home, only to be greeted by the director saying that the class had been cancelled at the last minute but we would have a makeup session. Which….was also cancelled at the last minute.
I finally made it the sixth (my fifth) class on Wednesday, feeling a bit bouncy again. After all, this time, I would be soldering – adding the leading that would ordinarily be holding the glass together and in this case would be concealing the lines between acrylic pieces. That had to involve...
...and for those of you thinking, hmm, I bet this also involved removing adhesive from acrylic meant to look like metal and pressing it on Plexiglass, give yourself a round of applause.
On the bright side, I now know how to make nice fake glass art, and how they make nice faked stained glass in theme parks, restaurants and other places. (You can make fake bevels, too, and use the acrylic to give a look of thicker leaded glass, if you want, so just assume, in Florida, that any outdoor "stained" glass you see is actually glass covered by acrylic.) This is mildly excellent, since we do have a window in the library/garage to replace, and, yes, I might just be able to put something in there. This time, without the assistance of the class.
And for what it's worth, for the generally inartistic among you, like me, this has got to be, hands down, one of the easiest ways of creating and coloring art. (I seehawkward cringing over there, and, well, ok, if you want decent coloring, you should do it her way, or better yet, hire her, but if you are me, go for this method.) I'm not entirely sure what the supplies cost, but it's certainly fairly easy to do. (Doing the original pattern is not nearly as difficult as a typical pen/ink or pencil drawing.)
And I have a little picture of two green dolphins swimming in shades of blue. With bubbles fighting between the acrylic and the plexiglass.
In my memories, it's also the first time I saw magic.
The men put sticks into hot fire, drawing out something that was red and gleaming and – it seemed – liquid fire. And then, from that, they would start to pull at the fire, twisting, pulling. Other colors would emerge and then – this was the magic – a little horse would come out. Or a flower. Or a shoe. Or a vase. Once the glassblowers snipped off little pieces of purple glass, all glittering, and gave one piece to my brother and another piece to me. I still have mine. And I still have the horse I was allowed to get – green, since green was my favorite color that day (it changes, but is never orange). Only one horse, not more, because my parents were afraid that I would break the others, a prophecy that alas proved all too true: that horse is in my room right now, in the shelves across from me, with one foot missing, to remind me of magic. And breaking things.
It's not really a surprise, I guess, that I fell in love with glass blowing and glass art and can spend hours sitting in front of glassworkers and that even hours spent in front of stained glass cathedral windows listening to extraordinarily dull and frequently factually incorrect lectures on tympanums couldn't quite destroy this love (although it made me considerably less fond of Romanesque architecture, but that's another saga.) I want to do that, I found myself thinking.
I remembered, too, the little "stained glass" kits I had when I was a kid – when you had a metal frame, and you dropped little colored balls in it, and put it into the oven, and, yay! Stained glass. Of a sort. That had been fun and worth doing again, even if not precisely a high level of creativity.
So, when our town catalog flopped into our mailbox, coincidentally while I was trying to think of ways to get myself out of the house and doing something new and meeting more people, offering a glass art class, I had to sign up. I didn't quite tingle with excitement, but my mind thought of all of the happy things I could do with glass. The term, I realized, was rather vague. Would we be making stained glass? Glass jewelry? Glass art pieces? Or – realizing how unlikely this was for an introductory glass art glass in a community center in a small city that has not exactly shed a small town feel – would we actually be doing glass blowing?
As always, reality rather rudely intruded into these lovely ideas. Along, of course, with hurricanes. Potential ones, that is.
The instructor was a commercial custom glass art installer, one of the people responsible for putting "stained glass" in Hogwarts. Before you get images of a cheery guy on a stick yelling "Accio Pretty Glass," this would be the Universal Studios Hogwarts, and what Universal Studios wanted, quite beyond tourists, was stained glass that would meet Orange County and state of Florida hurricane wind guidelines.
In other words, not stained glass at all.
Actual stained glass consists of pieces of colored glass carefully leaded together in a pattern or a picture. The state of Florida is not exactly against this, but would like to point out that in the presence of 120 mile per hour winds, especially in high buildings like Hogwarts, the glass and leading have a tendency to shiver and shatter and then fly through the air cutting people. Unhappy about this, Florida has banned this in outside windows and doors and the like. (You can do whatever you want on the inside.)
This actually made commercial glass artists happy, because all of that making and cutting and pouring colored glass and leading takes lots of time, and it would be considerably easier if this could all, just, you know, be faked, the way it is in certain cheaper and other establishments elsewhere. And, as it turned out, stained glass can be quite easily faked. Here's how you do it:
1. As with traditional stained glass, create the pattern. Unlike traditional stained glass, you can deviate from this quite a bit, as I'll be explaining, but it helps to know more or less where you are going.
2. Pick a piece of hurricane proof plexiglass or tempered glass that meets Florida construction standards. If, that is, you're in Florida. Non Florida residents are under no obligation to meet construction standards. In South Florida and Tampa, residents should be aware that the glass will need to be cut commercially (all that shattering again) but in Orange County our freewheeling ways allow us to cut our own glass. Yes, we are rebels here, I'm telling you.
3. Put the pattern on a nice white table or if you have one a glass table that light shines through, and put your piece of glass over it. If you are me and need to have this at an angle because standing is problematic as is getting up and down and leaning over the table, use tape.
4. Take pieces of colored acrylic sheeting and cut them to the pattern. Basically, you cut out a piece that's kinda close to the size that you want, and then you put the acrylic over the pattern and the glass, and use a nice razor knife to cut out the shape.
5. Moisten the glass and the piece of acrylic.
6. Remove the backing from the acrylic and paste the acrylic on the glass. Use a squeegee to push out all of the water.
7. Hold up the piece of glass to the light. See! Fake stained glass!
The acrylic in question is translucent and deliberately faked to imitate the swirls and natural flaws of glass, although you can also get sheets of acrylic without as many swirls, if you want. It's all up to you, because, as the instructor tried to say, we might not be making actual glass or anything, but, we could still be creative. Even if all we were ACTUALLY doing was GLUING PIECES OF PLASTIC to glass.
Sigh.
So, we – me and the only other student, a very nice woman who was planning on adding customized glass panels to her bathroom doors, started making our designs.
I should pause for a moment and point out that although I like to draw, I am – how does one put this – not very good, which is one major reason why I don't talk a lot about art on this blog – that, and I know I have at least three artists reading this who would all look at my art and say, in pitying statements, well, well, which is one major reason I haven't gone for a career in fantasy illustration, although, well, I like my dragons. In an attempt to improve, however, I have taken the occasional art class, which means that I can draw simple things, if pressed. The other student in the class was well beyond me – she works as a painter and interior designer.
So neither of us were precisely art novices.
I should also note that the instructor had never actually taught a class before, which...led to problems. On day one, he assured us that we would be making two pieces of glass art – one on plexiglass, the other on actual glass – and we would spend the first class making our designs. This…went poorly, because I figured that if we had only six classes and had to make two pieces of art, I should go quickly, and the other student had already brought her planned designs. (I may have mentioned that she was a bit advanced.) Her only question was what colors would be available and what installation he would recommend.
So, while they were chatting about that, I drew a couple of little dolphins based on a picture in my little iTouch. The instructor paused and came over to take a look.
"You can draw dolphins!"
I felt this was perhaps overstating the situation.
"But you do not have any lines!" he added. "You need lines! Lines from the dolphins! To show where the dolphins are moving! And to have more different pieces of color everywhere. Lines! Lines!"
"Maybe my dolphins aren't moving?"
"Lines!"
Not feeling up to fighting this, I put in lines. We both finished early and looked up at him expectantly. I figured I should start attaching plastic things since, after all, I would be – in theory – making two pieces of art. But not so much. He assured us we would cut and attach plastic things next class and dismissed us early, clearly surprised that people interested in glass art would have any thought about design.
The next class was Coloring Time. I felt – and I did not think this was an unreasonable thought – that I could make my dolphins grey and the water behind them blue. Not, I admit, my most creative coloring moment, but I readily admit that I am not
hawkward. Also the dolphins in my iTouch (from SeaWorld) were grey so I figured I could just go with the flow. And, just blue. The instructor did not want me to have just blue. I had to have several blues. I picked a blue. I cut my piece. I stuck it on the plexiglass. I cut. "Next piece," I suggested.
"You're...done?"
I decided not to point out that given that I was just tracing my lines with a razor blade, which is not as difficult as it sounds (the razor had a nice firm handle) that, yes, I was done. So I cut a couple more pieces and razored them. It was all going very well except for one small problem: in order to do this, you do need to have your glass (or, plexiglass) over a light table; otherwise, you can't see your original lines and can't trace the razor blade over them. And we had only one light table for two of us.
Since I was tired anyway, I vacated the table for the other student and left early, figuring I could finish up in the next class and start up my next piece.
Alas, at the next class, my original plan for grey dolphins was kinda wrecked when the instructor failed to bring a grey that matched my blue already on the glass. (Specifically he barely had grey acrylic.) The other available colors were blue or green.
"I could make pink dolphins," I said, trying to make the best of things.
"Dolphins aren't pink."
"Some are," I noted. "I don't know of any that are green."
"There are no pink dolphins."
We sidetracked for a little discussion about Amazon river dolphins (Inia geoffrensis) and Chinese pink dolphins (Sousa something or other, and last I heard the species genetic classification is under investigation and dispute anyway so we'll just leave it there.)
Fun though this was, my dolphins did not look anything like Amazon river dolphins and I did not feel up to explaining Chinese pink dolphins to others, so, I made my dolphins nice and green, because, well, I'm a fantasy writer, and in some lights in the Everglades dolphins can look green. Go with it. I razored out my little dolphins and was assured – assured – that the next class I would be adding in the nice leading/soldering and could plan out my next piece.
(The instructor was also very sad that I didn't go to great length to squeegee out every single one of my air bubbles between the acrylic sheeting and the plexiglass, this on the basis that no one at Chartres bothered to go to any length to squeeze out their bubbles, not that anyone was going to be mistaking this for a piece of Chartres glass.)
It will surprise no one to hear at this point that the instructor did not bring the leading to the next class, or that he confessed, at this stage, that he didn't have glass for my next piece. I could of course get it myself from Lowe's, and spend the fifth class putting his plastic on the glass, but I was fairly certain that a sheet of glass, no matter how well tempered, was not going to survive a trip on my trike, much less a trip on my trike AND a trip across the current dirt road and massive line of holes that calls itself State Road 50, which meant a ride. So, I spent the fourth class doing nothing, and planned to spend the fifth class soldering my first piece and putting plastic on the second, which would have worked nicely except that I had to cancel the fifth class thanks to weather.
I headed to the sixth class on my scooter in a rather dismal mood, but figured, what the hell, I could solder the last piece and bring it home, only to be greeted by the director saying that the class had been cancelled at the last minute but we would have a makeup session. Which….was also cancelled at the last minute.
I finally made it the sixth (my fifth) class on Wednesday, feeling a bit bouncy again. After all, this time, I would be soldering – adding the leading that would ordinarily be holding the glass together and in this case would be concealing the lines between acrylic pieces. That had to involve...
...and for those of you thinking, hmm, I bet this also involved removing adhesive from acrylic meant to look like metal and pressing it on Plexiglass, give yourself a round of applause.
On the bright side, I now know how to make nice fake glass art, and how they make nice faked stained glass in theme parks, restaurants and other places. (You can make fake bevels, too, and use the acrylic to give a look of thicker leaded glass, if you want, so just assume, in Florida, that any outdoor "stained" glass you see is actually glass covered by acrylic.) This is mildly excellent, since we do have a window in the library/garage to replace, and, yes, I might just be able to put something in there. This time, without the assistance of the class.
And for what it's worth, for the generally inartistic among you, like me, this has got to be, hands down, one of the easiest ways of creating and coloring art. (I see
hawkward cringing over there, and, well, ok, if you want decent coloring, you should do it her way, or better yet, hire her, but if you are me, go for this method.) I'm not entirely sure what the supplies cost, but it's certainly fairly easy to do. (Doing the original pattern is not nearly as difficult as a typical pen/ink or pencil drawing.)And I have a little picture of two green dolphins swimming in shades of blue. With bubbles fighting between the acrylic and the plexiglass.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-19 03:57 am (UTC)It was mostly frustrating because I really had been looking forward to exercising some dimmed creative muscles, not to mention that getting to the class really was an effort (and as I'm sure you can appreciate, pretty much killed the rest of the day) so I kinda wanted more to show for it.
Instead I just have this:
http://mariness.livejournal.com/970650.html (that's the picture of the dolphins.)
It looks more plastic in reality, because, well, it's plastic.
Oh well. Hopefully I will find some other artistic endeavor.