Glass Rainforest

I watched the movie Apocalypto by Mel Gibson one evening this past week and was moved by the actors, the dialog, the costumes but mostly by the set of the rainforest.

The colors of the trees, flowers, rocks, animals, people and their habitat inspired me to try to re-create the essence of the film into a piece of stained glass.

The first photograph shows the pattern drawn out on the cutting table with the corners of the piece being precisely cut to include a flower in the center of each square.

In the second photo, you can see that most of the glass has been carefully chosen, cut and placed based on the color of the glass and how it will contribute to the overall piece.

During the making of a stained glass panel, I will often times change a piece of glass simply because it doesn't fit into the theme. This is shown in the third photograph. I replaced the square piece of green glass with a square piece of yellow glass to represent the sun.

Next you can see the finished piece. The dark blue glass represents the rivers flowing through the forest. Trees and plant life is shown in the confetti glass which holds specks of blue, purple, green and strings of black. The nuggets of glass are similar to the rocks which line the bed of the rivers and streams. Obviously the dark lime green frame around the entire piece is the color of the leaves on the tall trees.

The last photo shows a close picture of the glass nuggets in the left side of the glass piece.