Stained Glass Panels
compost heaps and expansive mid-Devon landscapes transformed by Penny Somerville’s glass painting skills
Inspiration for Penny Somerville’s stained glass panels nearly always comes from her immediate surroundings. Whether she’s looking at a compost heap with courgette flowers or a panamoramic view seems immaterial; she still manages to inject her own exhuberant artistic vision into her subjects. This colourful stained glass painting is called ‘Worlds End’, and is Penny’s response to the landscape near to Minera in North Wales. I haven’t asked her, but I think she must be on drugs!! The colours are absolutely amazing, and are the result of an attempt to achieve the vibrant intensity found in mouthblown glass by using glass painting with enamels and silver nitrate. The piece is fired repeatedly to build up the layers and depth of colour.
In contrast ‘Compost heap’ is one of Penny Somerville’s more traditional stained glass panels, in its use of painting, staining and glass etching. With the use of the light/dark dynamic and restricted colour palette, this piece wouldn’t be out of place as a church stained glass window – apart from the subject matter of course! Again this stained glass painting has been fired many times to reach the depth of colour required without the use of lead. Aparently, it’s quite large and buckled a few times in the firing but thankfully stayed in one piece.
‘Heat drenched’… what a fantastic title to describe this glass painting that fairly drips with summer heat. I get a sense of lazy buzzing insects, long evenings and a general ripening. One important element in Penny’s stained glass is their close relationship to the spontaneous, lively drawings she makes on location. I can’t think of another glass artist who manages to translate their initial drawn ideas into stained glass panels quite so successfully.
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