I received this book over the holidays and as soon as Spring shows its toes, I jumped on the chance to start a container garden. While my backyard is still in progress as we just put in a raised container bed for herbs and vegetables, I found these little gems of colors exploding all over the place. The little girl in me was jumping for joy. Brimming with enthusiasm, I spent the morning observing them through my camera. Here are a few of my favorites:

Calamondin. For good luck. Small ripe fruits as big as my toes. Very high in Vitamin C.

'Joystick Mix'. They are certainly joyful. Their long stems reaching for you saying "pet me, pet me." (Yes, I am ok). Their scientific name is Armeria Maritima..." they have a great copper-tolerance, and are able to grow in soils with copper concentrations of up to 6400 mg/kg!"

Lavendar is my favorite color. These are so lovely against their greenery. When I squint my eyes, I'm in a dream of Lavender. Lavender has many uses. Infusions of lavender are believed to soothe insect bites, burns, and headaches. Bunches of lavender repel insects. In pillows, lavender seeds and flowers aid sleep and relaxation. An infusion of flowerheads added to a cup of boiling water soothes and relaxes at bedtime. Lavender oil (or extract of Lavender) heals acne when used diluted 1:10 with water, rosewater, or witch hazel; it also treats skin burns and inflammatory conditions. See, what a useful plant.

Calla lily is one of my favorite flowers. Simple in shape, incredibly elegant and totally sexy. This is the last lily standing.

Sedum requieni AKA Jeepers Creepers. I just love the name. They may look prickly but incredibly soft. I often run my fingers over them when nearby. I would love to replace them with grass so I can feel their gentle texture under my toes.

Dill. Lacey green that smells so good. They taste amazing in soups and on fish.

Mint and Sweet Basil. The aroma is out of this world. They look so pretty I have to restrain myself from eating them right then and there.

Tiny baby Japanese Maple. We have a love for the red maple and hope this will grow bigger and strong.

And lastly:

Drosera, a type of Sundew. Carnivorous plants that live in bog. They're my new pet. They eat bugs, and thrive in low nutrient soil, which means I can only use distill water and feed them bugs once a month.

Sunday afternoon, inspired by Van Gogh’s series of boots, we set up a still life of the same objects and set a time limit of one hour. I find having an hour deadline forces us to organize information, and still has enough time to interpret what we see on paper. Also, beyond an hour, we’d start to get tired, and the task becomes less fun. Here is our drawing session, breaking down in quarters of an hour.

We spent 2-5 minutes just looking at the boots, tracing the outline, shape, and simply observe where light falls on the objects. This observation part is really important and more time should be allocated than just 5 minutes. Because this is Sonny’s first drawing session, he still has preconceived notions about what he thinks he sees; I know I do too. If we get on with the drawing and get this out of our system, I think we’ll have a better discussion of what we think we’re seeing later. For today, our objectives are to capture the overall shape and study shadows.

Boots still-life (apologies for the crappy iphone picture)

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After 15 minutes of drawing the overall shape, we took a few minutes break to step back and compare what we have on paper and what we’re seeing.

Sonny's boots in 15 min. in pencil. He wasn't comfortable with charcoal and wanted to do the outline in pencil first. It's cool. If you're not sure where to start, use your favorite medium.

My version in 15 min. - trying to capture the overall shape of the boots, establishing a perspective. Everything can be broken down into individual shapes.

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We had another break at 30 minute mark, but rather than taking a picture, we took another step back and study our process. Because the paper is white, the lightest areas are already established. We’re working on giving the objects shadows to create dimensionality. I could see that Sonny started to obsess over a small area in the upper right section of the boots (the darkest area) and wasn’t quite comfortable with going all in for the shadows on the left boots. It’s easy to obsess over an area that you’ve already established control. When stepping back from the canvas, we are forced to see the whole picture again and it’s easy to see which areas need more attention. We are running out of time, so I suggested to work more on the left boots and continue to compare the values with the upper right areas. Even though the boots are black, which can be a bit more challenging for a first time charcoal drawer, I think it encourages seeing the shadows more carefully – its relativity to the lightest areas.

Sonny's at 30 min. - he decided to use charcoal at this point to work on the shadows, and to go for the darkest areas first.

My version at 30 min. - I decided to introduce some wine at this point, and also work on my shadows. Taking advantage of the hard edges of the charcoal medium, I tried to capture the ruggedness of the worn boots by varying the weight and length of the strokes

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We kept working on the shadows until the hour is up. I find that breaking down shapes of the dark and gray areas separately is helpful. Then, using various stroke weights, fingers, paper towel to blend those areas together.

Sonny's finished drawing, 30 minutes later.

My finished boots. My proportions are bit off, but the hour is up.

Finished drawing

Finished drawing

Personally, I haven’t drawn with charcoal or done a still life in at least 5 years. My proportions are off and if I had more time, I would fix that. However, that’s not really the point of this exercise, but getting comfortable with shadows is the challenge. I encourage Sonny to mentally, consciously, visually breaking down shapes with every objects he sees (pretend he’s a robot). It helps to really process and internalize what we see.

Next time, we’ll spend even more time observing, and less time drawing. Eventually, my goal is to be able to capture the essence of the objects with as few strokes as possible.

Last week, I spent a day with Howard in the studio, learning the preparation steps, and selecting different glass before the actual glass cutting. We talked through some of our decisions for choosing a certain kind of glass that work with certain lighting, and in adherence to our own artistic styles. This is really worth a whole other entry. Each color affect the thickness and texture of the glass which in turns affect how hard or easy it is to cut.

We decided that I will work on the panel of the boy reading the book, while Howard tackles the main panel of the girl.

So to begin, we put on some really good music (we started with the greatest Broadway hits, and then Patsy Cline), don our favorite apron or hat or flannel or all of the above, closed-toe shoes, and goggles. I took a deep breath and begin the excitement. Here’s the process, in steps for easy read:

1) It is extremely important that the measurement of the window is exact. So, Howard made sure to measure the windows not once, but twice. Try to imagine the agony and frustration of a finished stained glass panel that doesn’t fit the window frame. The true dimension is the actual window opening, while the desired dimension is the stained glass. The difference is the zinc metal frame that contain the stained glass.

2) Using the exact measurement of the window, we printed 2 life sized vector drawings or cartoons of the panel. Then, mapping each shape with a number to help us identify and track each piece, like a puzzle.

3) We situated the cartoon on a flat board (we used a paper compressed board), and fitted the metal reinforcement bars along the edges of the cartoon. We used push pins to stabilize the bars. We’ll be using this board to assemble the pieces of cut glass together.

4) It’s important to make sure the corners are completely squared. I doubled checked with a square ruler.

5) Howard came by to check my progress and also double check my reinforcement bars and perfect corners.

Once in a while, Howard looked over from his own panel, reassured me of my progress. “You’re comin along, kid! You’re comin along,” he tells me with confidence in his voice. I smiled and then we both went back to humming “The Sound of Music”

6) Next, I cut up the 2nd cartoon into its own pieces to be used for cutting glass. Using an exacto knife, I cut in the middle of the black lines. Keep the pieces together according to their sections, i.e. sky, boy, book, grass, ground etc. so I can find them easier later.

7) These are my tools. I initialed my name on the top, so I remember which end to use. Using the correct end will help to maintain the life of our tools. From top to bottom: Breaking Pliers, Breaking Grozier, Pliers, oil dispenser tube, and glass cutter (with carbide wheels – they last longer than steel.)

8) Here, we traced the piece 16 on to a piece of glass that we selected with a sharpie, placing the piece at least .25″ from the edge. Then score the glass along the traced lines. Don’t forget to wear your goggles to protect your eyes while cutting and grinding glass.

10) Using the Breaking Pliers, we snapped the glass so it can break along the score line. You can only score and break each line at a time. Generally, it’s more efficient to break off the whole section from the unused part of the glass, so we can reduce wasting of glass.

11) With each score line, we’d used different pliers to break glass accordingly. For breaking smaller pieces, we used the grozier pliers.

12) After each piece is cut, we reassemble them on our board. This is my progress thus far, before I left the studio.

This is Howard’s center panel of the girl. It’s mostly done and looking fantastic! I am so incredibly giddy about it.

Next, I’ll talk about glass grinding. I have yet to set up my studio at home to house the glass grinder. It’s a bit messy.  Stay tuned :)

During the month of December, Howard and I revised sketch #2, our concept of discovery through reading, to include more adventures, dreams of being, and little references /inspirations of other books. There was much back and forth between what to include and what not, what shapes would work best for stained glass and what don’t, but all in all, it took about a month to finalize our design.

This is our final design that we presented to our clients, whom consisted of the Principal, the PTA, and three teachers (more on this later).  Actually, this is a sketch that we traced on vellum paper so that we could draw the lead lines in.

This panel measures 16" x 72" Have I mentioned I've always wanted to ride in a hot air balloon? and who doesn't enjoy "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs"?

Also, we decided to included two more panels that reside on the left and right of the 3-panel above. The left panel is of a boy reading (for balance) and the right panel is the school’s mascot, a python. Once the sketches are finalized, I transferred them to vector graphics and designed the lead lines.

After the holidays, we met with our clients and presented a colored version of the sketch that I put together…it only took me about 8 hours to color this. Time flies when you’re having fun. It’s basically a version that in my perfect world, I’d have all the stained glass in the world to choose from. Howard assured me that in our contract, we have the right to alter colors based on glass availability either from our own inventory or from our vendors. This is the colored version. Feel free to click on the image for a larger view:

All 5 panels will be 100" x 16". We've since made some minor adjustments to the design, so that the panel with the pyramid blend better with the next panel.

We all met at Howard’s beautiful house for the meeting, and had a grand tour of all the gorgeous stained glass he’s done over the past 10 years. There were lots of oohs and ahhs and shocking faces when people realized how much time and effort goes into a panel. It takes about 40 hours to complete each panel. For a novice like me, it will definitely take longer (and we won’t even go into how much blood will be shed for this project).

After the tour, Howard gave everyone a tour of the studio. He had all the tools laid out and even gave everyone a chance to experience stained glass cutting.

Table for demonstration

another table with a current project. Howard was finishing putting together lead lines.

glass grinder

Glass cutter tool. When you cut glass, you create a "zzzzip!" sound as you score. Too little pressure and the break will not follow the score line, and too much will cause unnecessary wear and tear on your cutter as well as your wrist and elbow.

A plier is used to break two pieces of glass apart after you score the glass

Glass cutting demonstration. It's really hard to cut round shapes.

Stained glass project Howard was working on

The Principal's first time cutting glass

After the tour, we presented our designs and everyone loved it. They even clapped! So excited! But there’s more! We gave each a blank copy of the sketch and asked them to do a color exercise. We laid out a bazillion color pencils and while coloring, we talked through the contract and cracking jokes. Here they are, coloring away like little kids (they knew I was taking a picture so everyone got serious for a second :P)

We all had a great time and we hope the committee gained a little insight on stained glass.

As for me and Howard, we’ll start cutting and grinding and assembling glass together next week. We hope to have this project done by the Fall, before next school year begins.

The concept of ma through Lao Tse’s poems:

Thirty spokes meet in the hub,
but the empty space between them
is the essence of the wheel.

Pots are formed from clay,
but the empty space between it
is the essence of the pot.

Walls with windows and doors form the house,
but the empty space within it
is the essence of the house.

Stained glass is one of those things for me. It’s an art medium I know nothing about. In fact, I don’t often think about it, until I am in a space that’s been transformed by stained glass windows. I am in awe when soaking in the prisms of colors reflected throughout a space, wanting to stay in that light for as long as I can. Have I mentioned I love sunlight? and colors and shadows? Well, I do – being around light and colors is like swimming in optimism. But beside the light and colors, my eyes and mind are always drawn to the lead came lines that had been carefully worked into the design of a piece of stained glass. Clearly, it’s an art form that requires design skills to conceive a workable design as well as engineering skills to assemble the pieces together, both are totally up my creative alley. So, I’ve always wanted to learn how stained glass is done.

A Tiffany stained glass design

Luckily for me, my adopted (long story) uncle Howard, a local award-wining stained glass artist, contacted me (out of the blue) and asked if I’d like to collaborate on a project. He knows I know nothing about stained glass, and thought it’d be a good opportunity to learn. It will be a paid project but we will be donating the money to local charities. How can I resist? A chance to learn something new with an expert? I don’t even have to buy my own tools or materials? AND doing something good for charities? I was so floored and excited and honored that of course I agreed! BAM! Two birds with one stone. I am more happy than standing in stained glass light!

The project will be for an elementary school’s library window, a horizontal panel of about 15in. high and 70in. long above the main door. I started sketching and designing right away, thinking about all the literary references I wanted to include. Uncle Howard was kind and warned me not to be so attached to my design, little does he know I survived critique sessions in art school that prepared me for a career in web design, designing for a specific audience, not me.

So, understanding the audience is critically important for us, as well as the location of panel. We have to think about the elementary school kids, who will be looking at our creation, the PTA who are paying for it and the context of the space that the panel will be living in.

Anyway, I’d like to share a couple of initial sketches.

Sketch #1 – I was really inspired by Susan Jeffers’s book All The Pretty Horses that I found in our library, dated 1974 (clearly this book is older than me! My partner Doug has an amazing collection of children’s books growing up). The illustrations are stunning, and the little girl in me was transported to a HUGE sunflower field. You see that big sunflower on the right, there? I had a little girl laying on it reading a book but she was too small and got kinda lost so I took her out.

Sketch #2 – From sketch #1 I really liked the little girl reading on the sunflower so I decided to push that concept further here. Then, I have this entire landscape to fill up with anything I wanted so I started thinking about all my favorite children’s books, from Oliver Jeffers’s Lost and Found, Lewis Carol’s Alice in Wonderland, Shaun Tan’s The Arrival (a stunning must-read picture book) to Helen Ward’s Unwitting Wisdom, an anthology of Aesop’s Fables (fabulous illustrations too).

Sketch #3 – Since this panel is above the library’s main entrance, I thought it could be a portal, taking one’s imagination from one place to the next. This concept was inspired by The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, one of my favorite illustrated books. I was really inspired by the art on the cover as well as the architecture of the train station, an art nouveau style with lots of light and glass. This design is a bit more abstract and graphical.

 There you have them. Between the three sketches, #2 is our favorite and we think that children can easily relate from a distance. So we decided to continue to push the design and marry fantasy with dreams and professions. Revise, revise, revise (I can hear my English teacher in my head) until it’s perfect and workable as a stained glass design. I will share the final version once we get client approval, and will try to document my learning process here, so stay tuned.

Color study with gray.

I love that the accent colors in this room are derived from the paintings.

What a wonderful way to bring out a big painting!

Touches of deep purple! Yum!

Wow, the print illustrations make one salivate…nice to repeat the patterns in the pillows.

A Sketch: It’s always a good start. It doesn’t have to be anything complicated. Just something may be fun to capture. Sometimes I scour pictures on Flickr of a pretty scenery and use it for reference. Scenery allows for a multitude of different watercolor techniques from wet-on-wet washes to dry brush.

Wet on wet wash: What I love most about watercolor is the control chaos with a splash of spontaneity. Part of that requires trusting one’s instinct. I feel I’m losing some of that when I go thru hiatus. At this point, I feel I messed it up already because the edges aren’t perfect and the color bleeds too much.

Wet-on-wet technique consist of laying down a layer of clean water across the page before laying on a thin wash of colors to create the background. It’s very important to let each layer dry before apply more or else colors will become muddy.

I keep reminding myself it’s OK to make mistakes. Working with negative space can be challenging but also refreshing. When in doubt, take a step back, evaluate and keep glazing with a thin layer of color over the negative space until the feel is almost there.
 

Glazing: Glazing uses a thin, transparent pigment applied over dry existing washes. Its purpose is to adjust the color and tone of the underlying wash.

Foreground: Moving on to the positive space, filling in the warm bark of the trees. Tomorrow, I will add more texture. And each day I will add more until the painting is complete. It’s important to allow each layer of paint to dry completely before adding another layer to avoid muddy colors. Watercolor is transparent so each layer should adds depth.

Another layer of glaze: Building more texture and adding some branches to the foreground. It looks like a mess up close, but I’m working from the background to foreground so I’m saving all the finer details last. 

Details: Added another layer of texture to bring the foreground up a bit. At this point, I’m not sure if I want to continue or moving on. Since this is an exercise, I feel comfortable enough to stop here. Next time, I’d like to add another blue color to the palette and tighten up the brush work a lot.

Colors: Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine, Raw Sienna

I had an urge to paint something, but some days instead of having writer’s block, I have artistic brain farts.

So I cooked instead, hard-boiling eggs to be exact. I remembered a passage Doug read aloud to me a while ago from Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook, “How to Hard-boiled a freaking egg.” I reached for the book, hard-boiled some eggs and painted them.

It was dark outside by now, and I had completely wasted the morning light. My eggs are not perfectly rounded as the light and shadows came from my head but I had fun, and the eggs were used for caramel catfish.

The End.

It’s based on an image I saw a while back but I can’t remember where. I’ve been painted this image slowly for the past 3 months – 5 minutes here, 10 minutes there. I know I know, it’s nothing even big or complicated. It’s just that I’ve been really busy working on my other websites, but winter is coming and I’m excited – it’s my most productive time of the year…you know, how artists are. So I’m looking forward to going on some neat adventure with painting soon. And maybe even a revamp of this blog. In the mean time, this little guy needs some love!