Process

The concept was clear and simple, to make a panel 300mm square inspired by The Thames at Kelmscott via some old favourites - May Morris’ embroidery (top) and my drawings done along the same stretch of the river (above). I worked on it sporadically during a few disjointed weeks, making decisions along the way guided by the materials rather than making a detailed plan and then executing it.

During this process I continue to be amazed at my incompetence. I’m not able to see whether I like what I’m making until it’s leaded up, cemented and in the window. This small panel was leaded up four times, I reused the lead again and again resulting in a slightly chewed up appearance, a good description of how I feel after finishing the piece. In the final version (number 4) I have kept the best bits of painting with little lines that reference the embroidered stitches without copying anything in the picture.

Starting by finding the pieces of glass I wanted to use; on the lightbox you can see the textures of the central piece (Pilkington’s arctic) and the purple cast chunks; first attempt at painting.

Panel masked up for painting before the next firing: version 1 leaded up and in the window: the same panel with the tracing paper backing removed, electric colours and cauliflower textures. However, I should know by now that just copying a good drawing on to glass never works.

I pulled the panel apart and preferred it like this; version 2 repainted with the corner pieces I hated replaced by scraps of painted reeds - just looked like a mess; version 3 with a yellow border - composition is unbalanced and not what I wanted.

Pulled the panel apart again and chose some peaceful watery scraps of painted glass: version 4 in the window; version 4 with tracing paper behind.

At the Bowls Club

The Bowls Club window, week one.

The Marlborough group of Arts Together, a charity that brings together professional artists and older people for weekly art workshops, meets in the Bowls Club. The windows there provided a good setting for the latest version of my glass painting project. At the end of week one we had a row of glass pieces on the window sill ready to fire, their black iron oxide paint having been textured and scratched off by the group members. Four weeks later, after sessions of enamel painting on the centre and border pieces, I returned with the panels that I’d leaded up in my studio, mostly to their specifications, and displayed them on the window sill again. The black and white pieces looked so good in the first photo, the question is have we improved them over the following weeks?

The Bowls Club window, week five.

Glass by Alan, week one and completed panel.

The example of Alan’s panel (above and below) shows the process from week one, with his enigmatic scraffito drawing on a layer of black paint that becomes the ground for further layers of painting in transparent enamel - harder to do and harder to predict the outcome. The borders are a mix of decorative and sample pieces that make it possible to link the pieces together into a solid stained glass panel, a thing that members might actually want to have.

Glass by Alan, week two before and after firing, week four choosing coloured glass to add in corners.

Glass by Gillian, week one, week two and completed panel.

The example of Gillian’s panel (above) shows an original drawing done with great confidence but not really improved by the enamelling, which she did in a ‘colouring in’ style. Her borders however, with speedy, drippy paintwork worked perfectly the first time, no coloured glass pieces were needed to help out the composition of the panel.

A finished stained glass panel represents several hours of work, with different techniques tried out, skills learned and choices made. In terms of the aims of the group, the activity is more important than the art, which should be enjoyable and sociable. You might think that the purity and simplicity of the black and white drawings are sacrificed during the process, but in this type of teaching it’s more about what you learn than what you make.

Gillian (on left) and friends: Alan and Bill painting.

Styles in glass painting and lettering

Left: West window by A.J. Davies at St Mary Magdalene Church, Crowmarsh Gifford. Right: Interior of St Lawrence, Warborough, Oxfordshire.

Since seeing his little east window at St Margaret’s in Herefordshire (described on my blog here) I’m getting more interested in the work of A.J. Davies of the Bromsgrove Guild. The first window I saw on this Oxfordshire trip was in the church at Crowmarsh Gifford (above left) high up above the west entrance door and slightly lost in its surroundings (my zoomless camera couldn’t capture the details). However St. Lawrence church at Warborough, only four miles away, has three A.J. Davies windows from different periods, therefore interesting to compare them with each other and to see their quiet impact on the whole church (above right).

Warborough: East window by A.J. Davies (1919) and details from the bottom lights.

The east window is dedicated to those who died in the First World War with large and small figures, badges and scenes united by patterned borders and quarries. The scenes at the bottom show how these quarries, covered in unconnected painted ornamentation, break out into different shapes with strong lettering incorporated into the design and his signature so usefully placed at bottom right.

Warborough: North nave window by A.J. Davies & detail (1924).

At the north east corner of the church is this slightly later work (above) of an organ playing monk next to St Hilary. In the background are the same sort of symbolic details that I’d admired in his St. Margaret window, angels and radiating light as well as a flock of cute bluebirds. The snakes and slipper detail below shows the technique of covering all the pieces of glass with paint, then removing it with textured strokes, scraping and stippling to let the light come through in a subtle way.

A.J. Davies made the third window (below), also visible in the photo of the church interior, twenty two years later towards the end of his life. Gone are the interestingly shaped background pieces, the patterns and the branches for borders. Instead we have a stippled background, realistic looking flowers instead of floral ornamentation and some cute children, all of which record changing fashions in the making or commissioning of stained glass.

Warborough: North nave window by A.J. Davies & detail (1946).

St Mary Magdalene Church, Crowmarsh Gifford, Oxfordshire. North chancel window by Charles de Vic Carey, 1961.

On the same trip I was thrilled by a small lancet window in the church at Crowmarsh Gifford, the only one I have ever seen by Charles de Vic Carey, the teacher at Wimbledon Art School of Pauline Boty and my first stained glass teacher, Tony Attenborough. In it, I recognised the way I was encouraged to paint, with visible brush strokes (so good to see some actual painting rather than the endless quest to find different ways of applying the paint) going across lead lines and uniting the pieces of glass to make a composition, as a painter would. At the bottom is a little, loosely painted portrait of Emily Wilder and children above the fabulous lettering that is collage like and totally of its time.

Details from the bottom half of the Charles de Vic Carey window.

Arts Together

I planned a project for Arts Together, a charity that brings together professional artists and older people for weekly art workshops across Wiltshire. The focus was on glass painting and the aim was for each person to have their own stained glass panel at the end without them having to do any glass cutting, leading or soldering for which you need more than the average older person’s strength.

Twelve completed stained glass panels by members of the Pewsey group run by Arts Together.

As you can see from the completed panels (above), they turned out to be varied and original, reflecting the preferences and interests of each member. In week one participants removed the paint, scraffito style, with sticks, brushes and cotton buds and no real idea how the glass would look after firing, even more so in week two when they added enamels that become transparent when fired. This made the work experimental as did the fact that this was a new project and I had no examples to show, therefore nothing for people to copy - I love it when people draw from something in their head rather than from something on their phone.

The stages over the five week period are shown in the photos below.

Week one: scraffito on pieces of glass covered with black iron oxide paint. Carol, Norman, Liz.

Weeks two & three: add enamel paint, start painting borders. Centre shows glass before firing in my kiln. Cis, Janet.

Weeks three & four: (above and below) paint borders, choose coloured glass to add in. Vanessa, Helena, Helena.

Between weeks four & five I leaded and soldered each panel. Derek, Ruth, Ruth.

Week five: (no pictures as we were too busy) cementing.

Scrap Glass

Left, palette with unfired enamel paint. Right, glass scraps painted with two enamel colours and fired.

For a recent commission I had to make a lot of colour samples using transparent glass enamel mixed with a drop of lavender oil and another of gum arabic in the traditional way. With the leftover paint I coated rectangles of glass with two colours against each other and once fired, saved them in a box. The next stage, cutting them up then leading them together to make something satisfactory, proved harder than I thought.

Scraps cut up and arranged to make scrap panels 1, 2 and 3.

My first idea was to make exuberant curved shapes with background pieces cut on the slant (scrap panel 1 above and below). The offcuts from the slanted pieces made an effortless triangle panel (scrap panel 2 above & below). I shouldn’t have been surprised that panel no 2 was so much better than panel no 1, as I wasn’t trying too hard - always a recipe for disaster. There was too much yellow in no 1, so panel no 3 (above right) was an attempt to deal with the yellow by making it the spine of the piece and using the colours in a more ordered way.

Scrap panels completed, top panels 1 & 2. Bottom panels 3 & 4.

The original format of panel no 3 looked very clumsy, so I cut it down to make a smaller panel no 3 (above right). Finally, to emphasise the original idea of the two enamel colours coming together on one piece, like a simple flag or landscape design, I made panel panel no 4 (above left) where the bands of complimentary colours frame other painted and sandblasted scraps from one of my many boxes of broken glass and sample pieces.