Stained Glass Hummingbirds, January 2013

Late last fall, I was asked to make a stained glass cardinal. There are scads of free, and very good, cardinal patterns on line and I downloaded several of them. And then I thought, I have a few pretty good cardinal photos. Let’s see if I can make my own pattern. I did, then made a tweak, and wound up making many which were bought for Christmas/holiday gifts. I’ll cover cardinals again soon in relation to ornament versions  I am also working on.

This all leads up to today’s post. Inspired by the successful cardinal pattern, I decided to go through other bird photos to see what other patterns of my own I could make. I started with hummingbirds. I’ve seen many stained glass hummingbirds on line, in a very impressive array of settings. I am leaning towards the more simple here. I think simple can be equally beautiful. I also had a fair bit of black/grey baroque glass left from making a raven, and thought it would work well to imply the fast beating wings.

As you will see in the album that goes along with this post, I picked two images, and created three patterns. I can already see tweaks I want to make in the patterns. I’ll make the belly part one piece going forward, to avoid a random seam in the middle of the body. On the side view hummers, I’ll do a better curve at the bottom of the belly. I have included the original photos on which the patterns were based, in case anyone is curious. I could do a female version of the front facing hummer, as well. Might have to play with that idea a little. For the beak, because these are not large pieces overall, I have opted for 14 gauge wire. All of the pieces here are finished in black patina. The chain is just a 3 inch length so that the bird does not sit right on top of a suction cup or hook.

I’m hopeful that people will like these as I know hummingbirds are very popular. They have such an interesting variety of colors, too, equaling a wide array of glass options. Please let me know what you think. Thanks!

Welcome!

Thanks for visiting my stained glass website. I’ll use this page to post about works in progress, new pieces, things like that. Please make sure to visit the gallery page to see an array of pieces I have made since the fall of 2005. And let me know if there is a piece you would like for yourself!

Currently, I am working on a couple of different patterns for hummingbirds, and also ornament size cardinals/red birds. I had a request for the latter during the past holiday season but just did not have time to do it then. Now, I am already trying to be ready for the next holiday season!

More will be coming soon! Please check back.