Painting on glass class

If you have read my blog for any length of time you know I love stain glass windows!  I love seeing cathedrals and old homes that have stain glass in them.  Being in the UK we have been able to see many great works of art.  Before I had children I learned how to make stain glass windows and even worked in a shop and taught classes for a while.  But after the children came I stopped as life got too busy.  A few months ago I renewed my interest in my old hobby by taking a refresher class and once again felt the desire to create.

I don't really have space in this house to begin creating again but will once I return to our home in the states.  I found a class on painting on glass (actually it is called staining and it is where the term stain glass comes from), signed up to learn this new skill.  I left the kids with the husband and went on my own for a 6 hour class.  I so rarely get to do that and boy did I have fun!!

We were first given an introduction to the art of staining glass and shown a beautiful window found in the cathedral where the class was taking place

Our work stations included a palette for grind up glass which would act as our outline 

an wooden arm rest to add in keeping our hands steady when working and to help us not touch the glass with anything except the brush

Water and gum of Arabic was added to the brown powder and mixed to make a paste from which to begin painting

first we had to learn how to draw and maneuver the brush, and figure out how much paste to put on the brush.  It does take a bit of figuring out 

I picked out a sample pattern, some people who attended were artists and drew their own designs--I choose a simple one as I am not an artist by any means

Then we add the clear glass over the pattern and then simply trace the pattern with the paste and a brush

Finished outline

You can use a pointed wooden dowel to clean up any area where mistakes were made.  After this the glass piece goes into a kiln for 15 - 20 minutes to make the paste a permeant part of the glass-- while we waited we all had lunch

The net stage is to add texture and coloring...For this class we only worked with one color stain - yellow

After adding a thin layer of stain I began to add texture by stippling, removing  stain,  trying to make patterns with cross hatch.  This is where a real artist can shine -- which I am not.

Lighter areas will show greater yellow while darker areas will not be as yellow.  

The yellow stain is added.  You can add more stain (by making some areas very thick to get a brighter color).  The items are then added to the kiln for a second firing 

 THE RESULTS

Here is one of my pieces

And the other of my pieces

The class was small to allow for individual attention and because of kiln size.  Here are some of the other pieces that people completed.  I love the eagle and owl pieces:)

I am hoping I can do this again by finding a class in the states as I really enjoyed it and it is a nice added feature to doing stain glass windows. There is a 3 day course which allows students to use more color stains unfortunately I ran out of time and won't be able to attend due to our move.