Blue Stained Glass Panels

A number of years ago I took a class in the art of making stained glass panels that resulted in the Window piece.  These pieces are the first ones I've produced since that class.

I liked the organic lines of the candle boxes and decided to use them here.  I chose four different shades of blue glass (possibly with the cuttings in mind) and cut each of the pieces into identical designs.  I then re-arranged the smaller pieces into the four designs and leaded them together.

I originally thought I could cast them into the four sides of a concrete candlebox, but since firelight penetrates blue glass so poorly, I might just keep them as window decoration.  Below are close-ups of each piece.

Don't Lose Focus - Practice Cutting

Although the model has a beautifully developed body, I think his body pose is less than ideal, and his eyes, arguably the most emotive element of a face are cropped out.

What truly drew me to this shot was the background.  The model is running through a forest with dappled sunlight striking foliage behind him.  His back and shoulders are backlit.  The foliage in the original image is out of focus, and I wondered how I would go about using the cutting technique which has very discrete sharp lines defining the edges of color to create an image that was out of focus, which by its very nature has no such lines.

I think the result is successful.  This makes me want to work with other intentionally out-of-focus phtographs.  Below is the off-axis shot illustrating the complexity of the out-of-focus areas.

It should be noted that the piece is 16x20 and consists of seven layers.  The lightest of these is a little too light.  The highlight on his chest, distracts a little bit from the bright explosion of shades behind him.

Daibes Sunset - Test Cutting

This is the small scale test (16x20) for the same image as "skyline yellow" in more realistic colors.  The yellow shades of the previous piece were very close together tonally.  I think the more diverse spread of shades adds depth to the image.  Below is the off-axis shot.

Skyline Yellow Test Cutting

I wanted to expand the detail of the previous work so I recut the same image in the same colors at a larger scale, in this case, 16x20.  Below is the off-axis shot, illustrating the individual layers.