Creating An Angel

A delicate two-color angel that rests on transparent wings and sits 5 inches high seems quite a simple little present to share with a friend.

As simple as it seems, there are many steps to creating an angel.  Let’s follow the process from beginning to end.

Step 1

From the many pieces of stained glass that are available, i select those that I think will make the best angels, like the sample angel at the top of the picture.  Generally for the body, I use transparent colored glass, often with a pattern, and very simple opaque glass that may have a slight pattern.  For the wings, I use clear glass in a variety of patterns.

Step 2

There are three pieces of the body that need to be cut from the colored glass.  The pattern pieces are arranged on the glass and then outlined with marker.  You can see that my white marker, used with darker glass pieces, started leaking and created much thicker lines than the black marker used on the clear glass for the wings.

Step 3

The pattern pieces that have been marked are then rough cut with a glass cutter and separated from the larger sheet of glass.  All of the curves may not be cut precisely, but the pieces now generally assume the shape of the finished object, as shown with the red, dark green, light green and white angels.

Step 4

Rough cut pieces are grozed – more finely trimmed to match the pattern outline with a specific type of pliers.  If each piece is grozed with no fractures, grinding is next so that each line and curve is smooth, as shown by the dark green angel, bottom left.

This is approximately halfway through the process of creating an angel.  Next week, we will finish our stained glass project and compare it to our original one.

If there is a particular item, color or design for an object that springs to mind for you and you want to know if we can create it, get in touch and we will see what we can do. Contact us by emailing here or contact us on Facebook.