Left: Paintings in egg tempera & indian ink on gesso - Ray’s wall in the exhibition ‘The Cloud of Unknowing’. Right: ‘That’s not really a question is it, more of a statement’ by Ray Ward. 340 x 210 mm
Right in the middle of Ray’s wall in our exhibition at Norwich Cathedral was a painting entitled ‘That’s not really a question is it, more of a statement’ that I really liked and decided to make the subject of my next stained glass interpretation. In this picture most of the detail is in the landscape, the figures are small and melancholy and the man looks very much like my dad did in the 1970s.
Left: Glass piece on top of a copy of Ray’s painting. Right: Glass pieces painted, fired and sandblasted.
As I’ve progressed with these interpretations I’ve found that a limited and contrasting colour palette works best. In this panel I used dark colours for the background pieces around the bright, light figures with the tones getting lighter into the distance at the top of the waterfall. Once I’d chosen the glass and cut it, I laid the pieces on top of a copy of the painting (above left) and worked out how to proceed with the glass painting stage. The figures are easy, I just copy very directly from Ray’s drawing, but the translation of the landscape was something different and much harder to get right. My first attempts at the rocks looked laboured and scratchy, in the end I painted loosely and then sandblasted a zigzag white line. This device indicates what is a rock or not in a decorative way and also breaks up the greyness of the loose painting style. For the magnificent curtains of water I used a strong opalescent green glass that is quite impervious to painted detail, so the falling water is done with white enamel in sandblasted lines. Below you can see how different the finished panel looks in transmitted (left) and reflected light (right), in weak daylight you get something between the two. You can also see how I replaced the original pink sky - which completely ruined the effect I’d been wanting to achieve of the pink figures contrasting with everything else - with a pale lilac piece.
Left: panel in transmitted light. Right: panel in reflected light. 420 x 275 mm
Detail showing the top of the waterfall surrounded by rocks.
Left to right: ‘Moon Walk” ink drawing by Ray Ward, Glass pieces cut and sandblasted, Glass pieces painted, Stained glass panel completed.
My last stained glass interpretation of the year was a quick piece of a woman’s head in profile (above). We used the photo of the finished panel "‘Moon Walk’ for our christmas card, as it turned out her serious expression fitted the mood this year.