Bottle Art and Glass Art

About ten years ago I took a stained glass class.  I still have all the materials to work with but not the time.

Besides working with lead with young children around and a new one on the way makes me cautious.

The dolphin above I did from a pattern available at my class.

The teacher was soo cool.  He once told us a story of one class he gave a creative challenge to, he had a large bucket filled with scrap glass and said for them to figure out how to use them.

It actually did not go well that time, I guess no one know how to think out of the box.

I said if I had been there I would have gone to town, I had a knack of seeing shapes with the broken glass.

Which leads me to a new idea to explore, mosaics.  I have all I need, I just need to get the mortar to use to cement the works. I have tons of bottles and lots of leftover panes of glass from stained glass that is begging to be used.

Blueberry Bottle

I like this bottle with the simple painted design of blueberries.  I think it would look great as a display on a country table or in a window.  It would do well in a pale or white decor.

When I do get ready to do Mosaics I want to concentrate on Celtic Knotwork design.

I did a bottle with a painted design...

Hand painted brown whiskey bottle

This makes me think Renasiance Faire or the SCA gatherings I had been invited to.

A great knick knack for the shelf or medieval/ fantasy gatherings.

I like the knotwork and would love to see it made up of small pieces of glass.

Would love to go for a dragon, but that will take some study.  I can only find books to help me on designing these things, I don't have a person to help me.  No class on it yet in my area.  

I did get started on this when our Children's Librarian did a mosaic class for Homeschoolers.  I took my daughter to that.  I made a sample square and so did she.  She preferred the  foam practice versions we did to the actual work, minute detail is taxing on her short term attention span

but she said I should do more since my simple piece came out so well.

The weather feels so nice today it's like spring, but this is Kansas so we may have another cold spell.

I have the windows up to get some air in while I can.

But all the new clean feeling is making me want to air out my stagnant art abilities and get to trying some new ideas.  Wish me luck fellow art lovers.