Karl Lawrence
Lexington, KY

"Victorian Paradise"

Upon opening the box with the Round 2 Theme Items I thought, "They would be great to use in a 3-D project, but what am I supposed to do with them in a flat panel?" I didn't want to do just a bevel cluster type panel, and I didn't really want to design it mainly around the mirror pieces, and what about those annoying little jewels? Then I got the e-mail about plating and I thought about that for a while, but decided not to go that direction. Then came the e-mail about those little opal jewels, wow, maybe I can grind them flat and use them to put polka dots on some glass or create some texture pattern, but no that wasn't the direction for this project either. At last it struck me -- I had been looking at a book about Victorian windows recently and I figured I might as well try a Victorian inspired panel using the parrot bevel as the focus.

I knew that with the parrot I wanted to use tropical colors and the jewels could be clustered to make stalks of white flowers (yes, I foiled 34 of the horrible little things), that just left the mirror pieces. Then it hit me, if I cut the mirrors in half I would have a trapezoid and I could build the border out of trapezoidal pieces with the mirrors in the center of each edge.

My final design is a copper foil panel incorporating alternating blue and purple trapezoids and the mirrors in the border surrounding a floral theme with a purple tulip-shaped flower at the bottom surmounted by spikes of tiny white flowers and a leafy crimson flower, which is surrounded by streaky green leaves which support the parrot bevel. Atop the bevel is a flowing blue flower beneath tendrils of green leaves and more spikes of tiny white flowers, all which is surrounded by clear glass. The finished panel measures 9" x 36"