Stained glass playmobil style.
My ideal customer wrote to me with an idea for a commission, based on what he described as ‘plastic glass from a toy’. Imagine my delight when I looked at the photos attached (above) and realised that we were talking playmobil, and that these playmobil stained glass windows are better, in terms of simplicity, colour and design, than most of the ones that I see of a similar date commissioned for churches and other buildings.
Inspiration also came from a photo story about the commissioning of the playmobil stained glass (above). I particularly like pictures 1 and 2 showing two figures looking and listening for inspiration on site, followed by drawing up plans, ‘meeting the world renowned stained glass artist Philipp and his wife Amelie in their alpine home’ (picture 4) and then, rather less convincingly, Philipp looking at stones and gems for colour ideas. The windows arrive properly packed in time for installation at Christmas when Bishop Paul says mass at dawn (last picture).
My studio lightbox
Inspiration in the studio came from the suitcase of playmobil that my children and now my grandchildren play with and scraps of leftover glass laid out on the lightbox (above). The palette follows the predominantly primary colours of the plastic toys, especially the stained glass, and the idea that I went with for the design is based on a house with arched windows at the top, flower boxes at the bottom and figures, just bigger than life size (i.e. playmobil life size), standing inside and outside it.
Top left: Design work with glass scraps. Top right: Design, colour version 1. Bottom left: Design, colour version 2. Bottom right: Window in progress.
I worked out the details with scraps of glass over my cutline (above left), the subsequent changes mostly related to blocks of colour and light and dark. The pale orange streaky glass I had chosen for the lower wall of the house changed completely during the firing, becoming so dark that the two main figures, an old one with integral hands and a new one who features in the playmobil photo story, just looked like shadows. I recut and painted them on a pale mottled yellow instead.
Above, finished playmobil panel, 255 x 485 mm.
Detail showing the two main figures.
The originals on the orange streaky glass and the initial samples where I tried out figures on red flashed glass and on pale enamelled glass, left me with enough pieces to make a sample panel (below). A happy ending to pretty much my ideal small commission.
