Rediscovering the Drill

My friend, Leah, makes beautiful fused glass mobiles as indoor and outdoor kinetic art. A while ago, we collaborated on a couple of mobiles with my hand-engraved artwork on them. One of these sold almost immediately (it was all different shades of green, and had trees drawn on each glass piece), but the ocean critter mobile has been sitting around for awhile without love.

This one-of-a-kind project has finally found it's home! The customer wanted to swap out the shark and turtle designs that I'd already made, with an orca whale and starfish. Last weekend, I dusted off the trusty dental drill and got to drawing.

It's been a really long time since I hand-engraved something, and it was really fun to get back to my etching roots. Using the drill is definitely not efficient for production work, but it's incredibly satisfying to draw something right onto the glass.

Leah and I have decided to sell the shark and turtle pieces as suncatchers, on their own. I don't know what our next collaboration might be, but I'm kind of excited about doing more one-of-a-kind items by hand. What do you think about a new line of glass suncatchers?