All the leaves are gone.

The Chickadee Light Box was my third stained glass project and my first attempt at a lamp. It turned out better than I could have imagined. I love to turn on the light and just sit in the room with it glowing in the corner. (Maybe that's a little weird, I admit. But the soft light is peaceful.) The chickadees happily guard the entry of my house.

I've basked in the glory of my first successful lamp long enough. I figure that it's time to get on with the next one. I had the idea for a fall leaves lamp at the same time as the chickadees design. (Again, thank you to Ichiro Tashiro for his inspiring work.) So last fall, I wandered around my yard and took some snapshots of my maple trees.



I first thought a "realistic" leaf was the way to go. But as I studied the outlines of "real" leaves, I thought better of it real quick. There are a lot of curves and overlapping parts. I know my limitations. My stained glass experience was not up to the task of creating 6-8 realistic leaves. Especially when I'm building a complicated three-dimensional lamp.

Instead, I traced the outline of a leaf photo that I liked and made a posterboard cut-out of it. I actually made three identical cut-outs.

Once I drew the borders of the lamp panel (6" x 9") I played around with the placement of the leaves. When I was happy, I traced around the leaf cutouts and moved on to the next panel of the lamp. All the while I'm thinking about how the glass will cut and grind. I could easily design myself into a corner, making pieces that would be very difficult to reproduce.

As you can see, the first panel is completed. I'm taking cues from panel #1 to design panel #2. These panels will make one corner of the lamp. On the fly, I decided to take curves out of the design. Instead, I've gone over the leaf tracings with a ruler to straighten every curve.

Now all four panels are designed and labeled. I will photocopy them for safekeeping. My next step is to transfer each panel design to poster board. I will then number and cut out all the pieces using my foiling shears.

Daily grinder.

The subject matter and the dimensions are now decided upon. As an added bonus, I was able to find all the different colors of art glass that I needed to represent the chickadees. I even found "snowy" glass for the background.

The next step is to transfer the four pencil-drawn panel images to heavier paper so that they can be cut.

The cut out pieces of each panel will be used as a template to mark the glass for cutting. I used common carbon paper, a pencil and my trusty ruler to make the transfer. Some poster board left over from one of my sons' school projects was used as the backing paper. It is stiff and durable; two great qualities for a template.

Transferring all four images at once to a single sheet of the poster board was done for the sake of convenience. Drawing and transferring images includes a different set of tools. I'll put the drawing stuff away as soon as it's done.

I don't like working with carbon paper because it can be messy. There was a small amount of excess carbon that rubbed off onto the poster board. The extra carbon may have made the templates a little messier than necessary but it didn't really interfere with the project.

In the image above you can see the poster board has several individual pieces already cut. I used copper foil shears for this job. The shears don't merely cut like regular scissors, they actually remove a sliver of paper in between the pieces. This additional space makes room for the copper foil that will eventually surround each piece of glass.

Notice that each piece is already labeled. Did you see that each template has a directional arrow? The arrow signifies the eventual orientation of the glass. Most of the art glass I use has a pattern that flows in a certain direction. I want the streaks in the glass to flow in the proper direction in my panel. The arrows on individual template pieces remind me which direction they are supposed to go.

Now you can see my glass cutting board is getting busy. The template for this first panel has been cut out completely and I'm beginning to mark and cut glass. I place the paper template on the the glass and outline it with an oil-based marker. I then remove the template and cut just inside the marker line. My running pliers (lower left in photo) usually takes care of the breaking.

Here, I am running a piece of glass along the grinder to clean up the edges. Every piece gets this treatment. (My other hand was removed for a clear and dramatic photograph!)

Organization is really important. (So is safety. Wear your safety glasses!) Some of these paper templates are small (smaller than I like). I place the templates in order on the board before they are cut. After they are cut they go into a little plastic baggie for safekeeping. Each baggie has its project name and panel number written on it. Save your templates and drawings! You can use them over and over. You never know when someone will want you to make them their own version of your project.

I placed my original drawing to the side of the work board. Here I can organize the glass pieces as I complete them. I can also compare the glass shape and size to make sure the fit is correct. Notice the grain direction in the glass of the bird's wing. That part of the bird would have looked funny with the streaks running in a different direction.

Now you can see my project board with the glass cut and in place. The yardsticks allow me to contain the pieces within the finished size of the panel. I will not move these sticks until all four panels are constructed.

The project board is simply a piece of 3/4" birch plywood. I've squared-up and nailed some scrap lumber at one corner. Making sure your project is square is really important. It is especially important when you have four panels that need to solder together later.

As I begin to copper foil each piece, I find that the fit is getting tighter and tighter. Some pieces need additional grinding for a proper fit. If I take away too much it will make gaps between the pieces which are harder to cover in solder.

Scritch scratch I was making a lamp.

An unusual peace has descended upon the shop. The table saw has been quiet for several days now. There is still work being done. But replacing the saw's loud grumbling is a soft, gritty scratching noise. A sound that I can only describe as what a fistful of gravel would sound like when scraped across a chalkboard. Anyone who has ever cut glass will know the sound well.

In a previous post I described my last stained glass project, a rendering of my antique hand plane. In that post I only touched on some of the techniques that I used to create the stained glass panel. This time, I've taken more photographs and will explain in more detail how this project will come together.

So, what is the new project? My new project is a lamp. Notice, I didn't say lampshade. There are plenty of stained glass lampshades out there. They are attractive and many are complementary with Arts & Crafts design. But this lamp is altogether different from anything I had seen before. You'll see what I mean as the lamp comes together.

Before I get ahead of myself, let me give credit where credit is due. The original piece that inspired this project was created by an extremely talented glass artist named Ichiro Tashiro of Japan. I borrowed heavily from Mr. Tashiro's work in the making of this lamp.

Let's start with the images. This lamp has four glass sides and a glass top. The glass portion will sit snugly in a wooden base. The four glass sides will have images. In this case I chose birds.

These are black-capped chickadees. I chose them for this project because they are common all across the northern part of the United States, and because they are active and cute.

Using a common ink-jet printer, I sized and printed black and white versions of these photographs. Now is a good time to talk about size. I had already decided how large the lamp and its base was going to be. In this case, I wanted each panel to be 6 inches wide. I also wanted the wooden base to be a square of 6 inches. Using the "golden rectangle" ratio of 1:1.6, I made the glass panel height 9.75 inches. (6 x 1.6 = 9.6) OK. So I rounded up a little on the math. It will look fine, trust me.

After figuring out the specific dimensions for each glass panel I determined how large the birds should be for a pleasing design. I also chose which direction the birds would face and the layout of the branches. Only two sides of a square object can be see at one time (I'm not counting the top as a side.) Therefore, only two sides of the lamp will have a detailed image of birds. The other two sides will probably face a wall, much like I did when I misbehaved in kindergarten.

Using expert drafting equipment of a ruler, a pencil, a carpenter's square, and a sheet of paper, I was able to lay out the 6 x 9.75 inch panels. From the black and white prints I traced pencil outlines of the birds' prominent features and the twigs they are perched upon.

After making the simple pencil sketch, I went over the drawing another time with a pencil and ruler, making my lines straight. I thought the panel would look better that way. You be the judge.