We love finding examples of people doing awesomely creative things with stained glass, so we were delighted to encounter the wonderfully geeky work of self-taught stained glass artist Evan Daniels.

Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Evan’s magnificent windows feature some of our favourite characters from video games such as Metroid, Halo, and Mega Man, superheroes like Iron Man, My Little Pony characters, and even the occasional TARDIS. Head over to Evan’s Etsy shop, MartianGlassWorks, to see more.

[via Kotaku]

These beautiful wave sculptures, one made of thin layers of precisely cut glass (entitled Maestrale) and the other wood (entitled La Vague), were created by Italian sculptor Mario Ceroli. Both awesome sculptures look like they’re about to crash against the floor and disappear, exactly as waves do.  

[via Colossal]

Science + Art = Awesome

We’ve seen adorable plush microbes and we remember making models of  microbes out of candy as school projects, but this is the first time we’ve ever seen the nasty little buggers exquisitely rendered in blown glass.

These beautiful hand-blown glass sculptures are the work of UK-based artist Luke Jerram, who has produced an entire series depicting microbes that cause different infectious diseases entitled Glass Microbiology. Here you see E. coli, HIV, Malaria, Swine Flu, and Enterovirus 71.

“Made to contemplate the global impact of each disease, the artworks were created as alternative representations of viruses to the artificially coloured imagery we receive through the media. In fact, viruses have no colour as they are smaller than the wavelength of light. By extracting the colour from the imagery and creating jewel like beautiful sculptures in glass, a complex tension has arisen between the artworks’ beauty and what they represent.”

Click here to watch a brief video in which Luke Jerram describes his beautiful glass microbes.

[via Enpundit]

Polish artist Marta Klonowska uses carefully broken shards of coloured glass to create beautiful translucent sculptures of animals, life-like in proportion and size.

“Almost all of her sculptures are based on animals found in baroque and romantic paintings by such artists as Peter Paul Rubens or Francisco de Goya next to which they are often displayed. Her work appeared most recently at European Glass Context 2012, and you can see many more images over on lorch + seidel contemporary.”

[via Colossal]

Spider webs are inherently awesome, but this takes them to a whole new level. New Jersey-based artist Emil Fiore, also known as Rocky, has perfected the art of collecting whole spider webs intact and preserving them behind glass. 

Based in New Jersey, Fiore first learned about catching a web in a children’s craft book and, ever since, the idea has stuck. He has used all kinds of sprays and varnishes to master the preservation of each web in its entirety and his hard work has certainly paid off. Spray painted with silver paint and set behind glass, these striking, silky designs are unique and captivating representations of the wonders of nature.

To collect the webs, Fiore spends his days hunting for spiderwebs in Palisades Parks, New Jersey. From May through October, he catches an average of 20 webs a day, five days a week, which he estimates to be roughly 2,000 in total per year. On average, a spiderweb lasts for only a few hours. So when Fiore comes upon an intact web, it’s an exciting moment. He says, “When I find one, I’m exhilarated. The web shimmers and dances in the sunlight with the slightest breeze. The silk refracts light casting rainbows of color at me. It is a thing of beauty and I wax ecstatic, but the capture demands all my attention. I stop breathing to make the catch and time stops with me. Then the hunt continues.”

Visit Emil Fiore’s website to view more of his awesome spider webs and perhaps even snag one for yourself or an arachnophile friend. We might just do so too.

[via My Modern Metropolis]

Artist and designer Robert DuGrenier makes beautiful handblown glass shells for Hermit Crabs to live in. The crabs get an awesome home and we get finally get a peek at what goes on inside those little shells.

[via Design You Trust]