Stained Glass Rainbow Butterfly~~new and improved version

Last week I had begun working on a new version of a Rainbow Butterfly in stained glass.  I had come up with the original idea a couple of years ago and have done a few versions of it.  For this new design I changed things up a bit by adding a lot more detail in the wings of the butterfly and also adding swirls and curves to the background--to give the piece more of a feeling of movement.

As in the previous butterflies I chose to use a textured glass made by the Spectrum Glass Company called Rough Rolled. It has a sparkly texture that really shimmers with sunlight or even objects behind it that reflect light.  For the background pieces I was able to piroot through my leftover scrap box searching for odd parts to use~~as it turned out I was able to use seven different textures to surround the butterfly.

This was the very last rainbow butterfly that I had done before making the changes that I did.  When working on the one above the thought came to me that I really wanted the colors to flow from the center outward--the only way to get that to work was to add more pieces to the project--which of course involves a lot more cuts and a lot of small pieces to wrap with foil. Also, even though I love the deep purple that I used its such a difficult color for me to photograph that I figured that I shouldn't use it again for a butterfly.

Shown here with all of the pieces for the project cut and about half way through the process of foiling.  Even though some of the pieces were/are tiny this step seemed to move relatively quickly.

Here it was ready to be soldered together.  When doing a piece like this with tiny parts its real easy to get globby and sloppy with the solder.  Remember to bring your patience to the soldering party.

Completed this butterfly measures 12 inches wide by 10 1/2 inches tall, about 30.5cm by 26.5cm.  Available for sale in my Etsy shop.