For the final project, I decided to make something with stained glass because I bought a bunch of stained glass supplies last semester and I had not used it since. I also thought a stained glass sun catcher would fit well into the Materials curriculum because it involves both mineral and metal material. The final result was an abstract version of a tent, trees, and a mountain.
The original concept for this piece was a little more elaborate, but I had to tone it down because it's the end of the semester.
To make this piece, I cut some glass into 10 pieces.
Then I had to grind everything down, so it could fit together.
After grinding, I foiled and soldered the piece together. I still struggle a lot with soldering. My seems are better, but the edges are still very messy, and no matter what I do, I can't seem to keep the tip of my soldering iron clean, so ash mixes into the solder causing my solder to look even worse; it drives me crazy.
After all that work, I have a roughly even glass camping scene. I specifically chose to make a sun catcher because the glass I used was semi-transparent/transparent and the way light interacts with it makes it great for small aesthetics pieces. Working with stained glass is incredibly hard and has taught me a lot about patience (every time I broke glass the wrong way I wanted to scream). I still have a lot of kinks to work out, but in the future I would like to add onto this design; maybe add more trees and mountains and definitely clean up the soldering around the edges.
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