Cicada wings and blooming things

Every year we are blessed with the emergence of one type of cicada or another. They spend most of their lives underground feeding on tree roots, once they emerge and break from their nymphal skins their adult life is relatively short. Their large size makes them easy to spot as they cling on to plant life or other things and I've even found them on the ground attempting to fly but their wings are so weak that all they can do is spin just a little bit.

The above is a photo of last year's Periodical Cicada coming out of its skin.

After looking at their wings closely I thought it would be an interesting fun project to create one in glass. The structure of the wing is really quite lovely.

For the first one I had made I had taken a wing that had fallen off of a cicada and simply scanned it and blew it up to a larger size to create a pattern.

For the first two wings I had created I has used textured iridescent glass. For the one I created yesterday I chose to use lightly textured sea green glass~~its fun to try things in different colors plus I've got a boat load of sea green glass that I need to find a use for.

For the previous two wings I had only added a single loop to the base of the wing, for this new one I've added a loop at a second location along one size as to allow the wing to be hung both vertically and horizontally.

I'm not quite sure if I like the location of the second loop, perhaps it should be placed further down towards the end of the wing.

Assembled using glass, copper foil and solder, the entire outer edge has been wrapped with a type of lead channel to give it strength. Cicada wing suncatcher is available for sale now in my Etsy shop.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Spring has come on in a really strong way here this year. Our winter was really mild so everything had awoken quite early. Most of the trees are in full leaf already, which doesn't usually happen for another month.

A few days ago I had noticed some lovely wild azaleas growing on a hillside just down the road from me. There are quite a few of these shrubs, I had picked the easiest to climb to to get some photos.

The flowers are really lovely growing in clusters, bright white trumpets with a heavenly scent. Members of the rhododendron family, I'm not quite sure which species these are--wild, mountain or other.

This is a view of the shrub I had picked to photo, tucked among various other trees the whiteness really stands out looking for attention.

Golden amber leaves in stained glass

A few days ago I got started on a suncatcher project for my Etsy shop in between some custom orders that I've been working on. This was a piece that I had done once before and loved it so much that I decided to create another.

Some months ago I had come across a fantastic deal on a lot of glass that someone was basically giving away. He had retired from the business and needed to get it moved off his property since the property was sold. Not having the heart to destroy all this glass, out of the blue he called me and asked if I might be interested. I simply could not resist.

Within this collection were some beautiful pieces that I'd never used before. One was this gorgeous dark amber glue chip glass. Glue chip is created when a layer of glue is spread over the sheet of glass, as it dries it pulls up parts of the surface in a random manner leaving behind an appearance of ferns perhaps, or a frosty look.

Another interesting piece was this deep dark brown glass with a granite texture that so reminded me of tree trunk. A color so rich and brown like the woods used in old German cuckoo clocks. These two colors paired with lighter amber I though would make an interesting combination.

For the center leaves I choose a medium and a pale amber colored glass, both in wavy Waterglass texture from the Spectrum Glass Company. Waterglass in all colors is probably my favorite glass to use. The colors are bold and true, the delicate texture lends itself well to so many different applications. Still photos don't do the glass justice as there is so much light play and a feeling of movement to it.

Reversing the textures of both the glue chip glass and the dark brown granite glass gives the piece additional interest once the sun goes down. Interior artificial light gently plays on the surfaces of these areas catching your eye as you walk past it.

This amber leaves suncatcher is now available in my Etsy shop. Measuring 13 3/4 inches diameter, 35cm. The design can easily be customized to colors of your choice.

Black Vulture~up close and personal

Quite an exciting event a few days ago in that I got to get close to a Black Vulture and it didn't seem to mind having its photo taken.

The vulture population has always been strong in the neighborhood I live in. This area sits high on a hill top overlooking the Tennessee River. The topographic features attract vultures year round due to the thermal currents that form naturally. Vultures enjoy riding these thermal currents and can soar effortlessly for hours. The above photo was taken a few weeks ago in the early morning hours when I followed them to a clearing where they were already in action.

The trees directly across the street from my house have been a favored roosting area as well. Hundreds of them will settle down for the night in the tall trees there. Occasionally, I'll walk over to take photos of them or to simply observe their behavior. They are not vocal birds, but do make grunts and hissing sounds. The loudest sounds that come from them are when they are spooks and whole flocks leave the trees~I suppose its the motion of air beneath their long wings.

Lately, I've noticed that they are starting to come closer to my house. A few days ago I noticed a few sitting in tall trees behind my house and along with making themselves comfortable on my neighbor's roof.

I had stepped outside to take care of something or other when I noticed a Black Vulture sitting on my neighbor's back deck. What a great opportunity this would be, I thought...I'll just sneak quietly alongside their house and snap off a shot or two...all the while thinking that the bird will probably leave once it hears me approaching. I got lucky and it didn't.

So, I thought I might try sneaking around the other side of the house to their back yard and get some more shots. The bird did not seem to mind at all as I slowly crept up the stairs to the deck and stood about 5 feet from it for these photos. Its a much handsomer bird than I would have imagined~~never seeing them this close before, only through illustrations and photos in field guilds and such. Its feathers were clean and glossy and somewhat fluffy on its head. I enjoyed my time with it and left quietly leaving it alone to enjoy the sunny afternoon. It was a wonderful experience, I'll have to keep my eye out for it again...perhaps it would like additional photos taken of it.

I've got a set on my flickr photostream for more vulture photos I've taken over the years:

2011~The year of the turtle

According to the Chinese zodiac the official animal for 2011 was the rabbit~but for me it was the year of the turtle. It seemed everywhere I went I'd have an encounter with one or more. Red-eared Sliders were found both close to water where they like to be but also one made its way through my yard which was a mystery as my yard is high on a hilltop. Eastern Box Turtles were found both in my backyard safe from vehicles, but a handful needed to be rescued out of the highways as well.

Here are some of my favorite turtle photos of 2011, I couldn't list them all as there were so very many. I hope you enjoy this collection.

Wishing all a very happy and healthy 2012. I'm very excited to find out what my animal for the coming year will be.

The black cat and the moon

Last week, I started working on a new panel to add to my Etsy shop.  The idea for this piece came about as a lot of projects do and that's by doing some simple sketches, doodling really, with no real intent of creating anything but somehow things just start to fall into place.  The original sketch for this was on scrap paper at about 3 inches tall.  After some thought and erasing and adding and white out I finally came up with the plan that I wanted to use.  Next came choosing the glass for it.

The glass I chose for the background sky is an interesting color~some of the time it looks purple, some of the time it looks blue~its always changing with any light behind it.  At first I thought to do all of the parts besides the sky and the moon in black to appear as silhouettes.  But, black is black and I was afraid that it would not be the look I wanted.  I decided to use a dark amber streaky type glass for the trees and another type of dark amber for the ground, glass that is more dense than the tree glass.  Of course, the kitty is black.  One of my black kitties loves to sit in the big oak tree in the backyard~~maybe I was thinking of him when I starting doodling for this piece.

A few days into the project and all the pieces were cut, fit and foiled.  Since its a rectangular piece I used rigid zinc channel to frame it.

Once all the parts were reassembled back onto the pattern, I measured and cut the zinc.  The ends were cut using a hacksaw and a miter box.  You can see the open channel on the second piece up for the glass to set into.  

Once completed, this Black Cat and Full Moon Panel measures at 15 3/8 inches tall by 14 inches wide, 39cm by 35.5cm.  I've had a chance to study this piece for a few days now since its currently hanging in my living room with good southern exposure lighting coming through it.  Sometimes I'm not sure if I've chosen the right glass to use for a project and with this piece the ambers were questionable.  But, now I'm glad that I've used them in that when the moon glows the brightest and whitest with strong light behind it is when the trees and the ground glow the brightest as well~similar to the way an actual full moon lights up the ground beneath it.

I've brought the duck back

A few weeks ago, I met a most interesting duck at a local state park.  I watched him as he would wait for fishing boats to be offloaded and then he would follow the boaters around the gentle cove but never venture out for to the main river.  Around the cove he would swim, he was pretty fast about it.  Finally, he came over to where I was at and I got to take a good look at him.

He's really a beauty--all black with feathers that are iridescent in the sun.  His bill reminded me of a Mallard Duck, so I'm not sure if he's part domestic duck, part Mallard or what.  There is a duck called an American Black Duck--but they don't look anything like this.

This duck got me thinking about bringing out an old pattern that I had done of a duck a few years back.  I knew I wanted to make some changes to it before doing another.  I played with the pattern a bit--made the cattails larger, changed the position of some of the grass and made those parts larger as well.  One thing I wanted to do with the new duck was to use brighter colors for some of the features.  The last duck I had done had darker colors which made it difficult to photograph.

The pattern I had developed was on a regular sized piece of paper-I enlarged it and got to making my copy.  I thought it would be interesting to do something different with the eye.  For that I chose to use a black glass glob, a/k/a glass gem, half marble.  They are a bit larger than needed---I grinded the glob on all sides to fit and took a bit off the bottom of it as well so it wouldn't stick up way higher then the glass.

It was really very fun choosing all of the different colors for this piece.  I thought also to use denser glass on the main features with the thought that this might be an interesting piece to hang on a wall since not everyone has big windows for big suncatchers.

After days of glass choosing, cutting, grinding the pieces and foiling them I was finally ready to solder everything together.  This is an exciting time because once I have one side soldered I'll finally be able to pick the piece up and see what everything looks like together.  The reverse side is then soldered and lead channel wrapped all the way around the piece.

I hung the duck up inside and thought it looked pretty good this way.  It was then that I realized that I was not completely done~~~I still needed to hand paint some features onto the duck.

A little nostril and some lines by his webbed feet are what I added.  I never realized how important this nostril is until I spent time watching that black duck.  He seemed to blow air out of it when he had his bill in the water--kind of what people do when they swim.

I'm very happy with the outcome of this new Mallard Duck design, available for sale in my Etsy shop.  This suncatcher panel measures 15 inches diameter, 38 cm.

I've been visited by royalty

Royalty~~in the form of this fantastic Regal Moth caterpillar, Citheronia regalis (Fabricius). I've seen caterpillars that are stunning and some that are large--but I've never seen such a big beauty as this one.  The outside cats had brought it to my attention~~well, not really, actually I check on them throughout the day to make sure that they are alright and haven't gotten themselves into any trouble.  I peeked outside and could tell that they had something large, green and interesting.  I was in for a real treat.

    

I'm not one that usually grabs a glove when something like this presents itself~~I've been known to handle frogs, toads, lizards, snails and even a slug or two without a problem~~but I could tell that this caterpillar was going to be quite strong in its gripping abilities.  Of we went together into the backyard, me and the caterpillar minus any cats, where I could study it closer and take lots and lots of photos of it.   I was truly amazed by its beauty--from the thorny horns on its head to the lovely marking on the sides of its body and everything in between.

This caterpillar is also known as the Hickory Horned Devil~~one of its host plants in the hickory tree. Oaks along with various hickories make up the backbone of the woodlands in this area.  After nearly 12 years of living in these woods I'm surprised that this is my very first encounter with one.  More great information about this caterpillar and the moths that they become is located  here.
I knew I had a great moth caterpillar in my hand but was unsure which specie it was, I set it down for a minute and ran inside to get the field guide along with a ruler to measure it.  By the time I had made it back the caterpillar had wondered off to isolate itself from this entire ordeal that it had been put through.  Sad to see it go, I was thankful for the opportunity to have seen it firsthand.

The field guide that I own was able to show me exactly what type of caterpillar I had just encountered and also the moth that it will eventually become. Since I enjoy posting my photos to Flickr I thought that I would take a look and see what other photos of the moth I would find there. I was really delighted to find a wonderful photo of the moth.  With permission from the photographer, Myeyeongaia I've posted two wonderful photos of this winged beauty.  The above a lovely female and below a couple in the midst of continuing the cycle of life.