Aspens

The Aspens panel was inspired by my son when I was visiting him where he lives in the high Rockies near Hoosier Pass west of Denver, CO. I mentioned that I wanted to make a stainless glass panel for his birthday and asked him what he liked most about the Rockies. He said aspen trees were his favorite. He said he loved the colors the leaves turned in Autumn and the gray-green color of the trunks framed by the mountain landscape.

I studied many photos of mountain scenes to get an understanding of depth and perspective and developed an initial design and layout. I then created a half-size watercolor study, shown at right, to get a feeling for color, pattern, and placement prior to creating the full-sized pattern and started cutting glass.  Once satisfied with the design, the full size pattern was drawn and laminated, the layout of the glass was determined, and glass selected. Having the pattern laminated allows for design modifications and adjustments for placement, shape, size, and patterns of individual glass pieces, because the laminate can be drawn upon without making direct changes to the underlying original pattern.  

The frame for the finished panel is made of plain yellow pine with hand-cut dovetail corner lap joints, which are held together with thru cut mortice and square tenon pin made of rosewood for strength and contrast.   No glue was used.

The photo at right is of the original watercolor study.  

The photos below show some of the steps in the creation process, along with the finished panel and two close ups.

Aspen panel - finished and framed