Stained Glass Dragonflies

There’s no particular reason why I have not done stained glass dragonflies before, but I have gotten many requests for them. So I finally worked up a pattern and made my first samples this week.

pink dragonflyThe fun part about working up any new pieces is playing with glass colors and textures. I sat down to make one or two pieces, but when I started to pull out glass, I wound up with 10 by the time I was done. After consulting the all knowing Google Images to see the impressive variety of colors in which real dragonflies appear, it was easy to keep growing the pile of glass I could use. And I am already thinking of new glass to buy which can also make for beautiful new pieces!

A couple of months back, when I was picking up some other supplies at the glass shop I most often frequent (Detailed Stained Glass in Concord NH), I found that they also had a neat translucent white glass which just screamed “dragonfly wings”. It’s Spectrum’s  Firelight Krinkle (according to the sticker on the glass) for anyone curious. I started out with the plan to use that glass for wings. As I pulled more transparent colored glass for the bodies, though, the white seemed too strong, so I also looked at clear glass possibilities. Wound up using some clear glue chip, hammered, and clear satin textures.

red/orange stained glass dragonflyThe other aspect I was keen to explore was the notion of eyes. Because I’ve also started making cat faces (which will be covered in another post along with some other new patterns), I have been stocking up some smaller globs. I was most intrigued by the clear ones with either yellow or red cat’s eye style irises in them. Not all of the samples have eyes as I don’t have small globs in all colors. Decided to also do a few dragonflies with a ‘regular’ head, just to see how it would feel to cut those, and how the finished pieces would look. I like both styles!

The end result is a variety of glass colors and textures used to try out a couple of variations of the pattern for stained glass dragonflies. They are 6.25″ wide and 5.25″ long. Talk a walk through the stained glass dragonfly gallery and tell me – what do you think? I’m also happy to make custom dragonflies with the colors of your choice.

blue stained glass dragonfly