Red Dragon Glass Art

I've been preparing to teach Beginning Stained Glass online for the great folks at CuriousMondo.com and I figured it might be nice to explain the "why" behind some of the things I choose to do.

One of the things I use most is 60/40 (tin-lead) solder. I didn't think "because I like it" would be a reasonable response if asked so I did what any reasonable person would do and asked Google.

See the interview, March 13th,  with Red Dragon Glass Art's Cheryl Peterson, hosted by Jodi McRaney Rusho from Glass With a Past

We'll be talking about the glass I make and how it all began. 

Check out the interview at www.creativityinfocus.com

It seems like every event I do someone asks if I teach stained glass classes and up until now I've always said, "sorry, no" and recommended one of my colleagues who does teach. But that's all about to change! I'm teaching an online course!

Beginning Stained Glass - Foil Method

I'm excited to be talking about glass and showing how to create a foil project with the wonderful people at CuriousMondo.com

The Challenge: Enhance a piece of metal wall decor with glass

That was the request, and this is the original piece of art:

It had a "lip" in the back that would be perfect to act as a frame to support the glass so I said I'd be happy to give it a try, and brought it home with me.

I had a vision of how the final piece would look so all I had to do was make that vision become a reality.

After much anticipation, and a quick onsite repair, the day finally arrived for the big reveal.

Prior the grand opening and ribbon cutting at The Quilter's Lodge these two panels were hidden from view with brown paper.

But when the paper came off and the crowd oooh'd and aaaah'd, all the months of work was paid off.

It's not something you want to think about but occasionally breakage happens. A glass artist knows the sound and no one wants to hear it.

Occasionally it happens when a piece is being installed. It was a lucky thing that the breakage was in a convenient spot and easy to fix. So I packed up my tools and made the repair on site.

For the past several months, I've been working on this project for The Quilter's Lodge. The initial design meetings took place as the building was under construction, and I though it might be fun to share the design process of a large project like this. The finished project will consist of 2 panels 30" high and 72" wide.

I've been sampling glass for an upcoming project and one of the ideas I've had rolling around in my brain is creating the illusion of plaid fabric. The basic idea is to use various colors of stringer (thin rods of glass) to create plaid stripes. I was testing two methods of so I started out with two pieces of clear glass for the base.

Breaking the stringer into lengths the size of the glass square, I anchored them in place with Elmer's School Glue.

Though the idea didn't originate with me, I thought I could improve on the art glass dragonflies I've seen. I thought forks were an obvious choice for the body because the tines could be bent into legs. So I did some experimenting and the first attempt was a little awkward and bulky. The second attempt was more pleasing and here is the process for creating a dragonfly.

First select and cut the glass. I have glass gems of various colors that I'm using for the head.