Yes and no. As long as you
can cut, foil, and solder, you can make a nice looking project. A lot of
people get a great deal of pleasure from doing this and that's just great.
If you want to call yourself an artist, you need a good sense of colour and
a creative sense of design. Creativity does help.
You should have some common
sense when picking out colours; the sky should be blue, pink, orange, red,
gray etc., the usual sky colours. The ground can be any ground colour, and
so on. You should try to place the "grain" of the glass, to get
the maximum effect from it. For instance, placing the grain horizontally in
the sky to show movement.
What
is Came? What is Copper
Foil? What are the advantages?
Came can come in different
forms, lead, brass, zinc, copper. Generally came is lead. It's the easiest
to work with (out of the came choices anyway). Glass doesn't really need
grinding because the came doesn't need to stick to anything. Instead the
came leans on the glass, and is later cemented in place.
Lead came is the
traditional method when doing church windows, and other large windows. It
can withstand the elements far better than foil, usually for about 100 years
or so. Lead came is much neater than foil because less soldering is
involved, and the bead always looks neat (providing a bead shaped came was
chosen).
Zinc, copper and brass are
special cames. There used for structural reinforcements and decorative
items. Brass came is usually found in bevel windows. It's not that the brass
is stronger, but because it's prettier, flashier.
Copper isn't used that
much, but it's there because you might need it. And lastly, border came
which is used around borders to help strengthen the window.
Foil is a very thin copper
strip that's sticky on one side. Basically you wrap this tape around every
edge of every piece of glass in a project. Foiling can take awhile to do,
but you can get a much more intricate design than you can with came. Plus
you can have decorative soldering done to a project. And 3-dimensional
things can be made, with came it looks rather "clunky". However
foil is flexible, which can be bad because it can allow a panel to flex,
which means breakage. It's also not water proof, which means it's not a
great idea to expose it to the elements, it may leak.
So which is better?
Neither. Generally what you learn with is what you'll stay with. It's good
to know both in case you need to use it. Generally if you’re going to
build a window that will be exposed to the weather, use came and cement it.
If your want to make a lamp, a box, or nice looking suncatchers, choose
foil.