Tangible proof that great stained glass art can be created without any experience whatsoever!
So far the stained glass art I’ve shown in this section of my website has been made by artists who use advanced techniques, such as glass etching and glass painting. But not this page! Here I’m paying homage to my students, who have surprised and delighted me over the years with their inventiveness and willingness to ‘give it a go’. Learning how to make stained glass means learning lots of very different new skills – glass cutting, manipulating stained glass lead and soldering irons to name but a few. This first piece of stained glass art was inspired by bamboo shoots. Notice that the student, Sue Daniel, has experimented with different lead thicknesses to emphasise the horizontal aspects of her design.
Designing stained glass art is tricky too. Technical and aesthetic considerations run side by side. For example, you have to make sure that each shape is ‘cuttable’, that the colours work together well AND not forget the visual impact of the lead lines. I think this stained glass panel manages to balance these elements perfectly. Inspired by hot air ballooning, it captures the billowing effect of the wind by curving the lead lines and by using the colours to create a rounded voluminous form. Marvellous. Makes me feel I’m floating away.
The pallette Vicky Liddiard used in her first panel is unusual in its’ subtlety. It’s easy to be seduced by all the bright primary colours, but this piece of stained glass art derives it’s strength from restrained use of colour. That tiny bit of orange in the centre fairly shouts out at you, surrounded as it is by muted greys and blues. In case you’re wondering how those bits of lead stop in the middle of nowhere, they’re ‘false’ leads. The heart of the stained glass lead is removed and the flanges simply stuck on the glass and cemented in as normal. It’s a technique pioneered in Germany by Johannes Schreiter . I hope you’ll feel inspired by these stained glass panels to have a go yourself.
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