Stained Glass

[ShadowHM]

I know I have mentioned more than once that my husband's hobby is stained glass.

I finally got myself a digital camera last weekend, and spent the weekend playing with it.

Among the photographs I took were some of the stained glass items at the cottage. Should any of you be interested in seeing them, I put some of them in my folder at Realms Beyond Perceptions.

http://realmsbeyond.net/gallery/view_pho...hernLights

[Zed-F]

Those look quite nice!

My mother has designed stained glass windows (she designed all the stained glass windows at my home church in Edmonton, approx. 25 in total, and I believe some others at other religious institutions as well) but she leaves the actual making of the windows to someone else.

[ShadowHM]

My mother has designed stained glass windows (she designed all the stained glass windows at my home church in Edmonton, approx. 25 in total, and I believe some others at other religious institutions as well) but she leaves the actual making of the windows to someone else.

Designing a stained glass piece is a tricky thing. You have to design for strength (so it won't fold on itself, for example) and keep the lines of the design flowing with your subject matter. Hubby started by using other people's designs in the colours and glass types of his choice. (There are countless books of designs available.) The Pegasus, blue heron and the masks are from books, albeit with his colour and glass choices. Later he shifted to taking his 'general' design from other media. The two outdoor scenes were from paintings he admired. I added his last effort to the gallery, where he adapted a Lawren Harris painting. The Group of Seven's work lends itself to the stained glass medium very well. We have a number of them. But designing a piece from 'scratch' is another level altogether.

All that leads me to ask about your mother's work. Designing a larger piece is a challenging thing, because you have to really be careful about the strength. Having the workshop space to be able to assemble it is a barrier in itself. Also, many religious pieces call for design of the glass itself. Hubby merely goes to the stained glass stores and picks glass that he likes and eventually finds a design that works for it - the sky in the Norther Lights piece and the Stormy Mountain piece were purchased and left alone for a long time before he found a way to use them.

But many church pieces that I have seen have the glass itself custom made, so as to get the details of the religious scene 'embedded' in the glass - things like the head of Christ, for example. Did your mother design her glass too? That additional design element would take considerable artistry.

[Zed-F]

No, I believe she just designed the windows themselves and left the glasswork entirely up to the craftsman. I don't think much special work was required for the design of the glass, though there may have been some. IIRC most of the individual glass pieces are of a single colour, though there are some exceptions. The largest window is one of a Luther's Rose, and that one might have required some extra design on the glass itself. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to share.

[Hawkmoon]

I know I have mentioned more than once that my husband's hobby is stained glass.

I finally got myself a digital camera last weekend, and spent the weekend playing with it.

Among the photographs I took were some of the stained glass items at the cottage. Should any of you be interested in seeing them, I put some of them in my folder at Realms Beyond Perceptions.

http://realmsbeyond.net/gallery/view_pho...hernLights

Shadow, those are gorgeous! Your hubby is a really, really talented fellow (and you are a lucky woman!). I've often thought that I'd love to learn to do stained glass, but, alas, all my spare time (such as it is) is occupied with kids, other home improvements, or gaming...

If you ever decide that you simply have too many stained glass pieces, I'd volunteer to give one or two of them a home...

Cheers,
Hawkmoon

[KingOfPain]

Stormy mountain is my favorite, GO hubby!

BTW, that would be the proper lighting setup for stained glasses - Main source from behind. If you would have framed the photo tighter the auto setting on your camera would expose the piece even better.

I have always wanted to try stained glass too... so much to do...life is too short...maybe an early retirement....

KoP

[ShadowHM]

To Hawkmoon and King of Pain:

Making stained glass works for hubby because it fills other needs for him.


He spends his work days in 'seeking cooperation from others' mode. He sees one patient after another, and they must all cooperate with him to allow him to help heal them. He must project a positive attitude at all times, no matter what he is really feeling. He helps but nobody gets better unless they are part of it. Also, since many of his patients are there because they need to mitigate problems that occur due to work postures, the job is never 'done'.

All the fine motor skills that make him good at chiropractic adjustments are also useful in glass cutting. But nobody has to cooperate. No people contact of any kind is needed. He can enter his workshop and putter to his heart's content. And at the end, he has something that is 'finished'. He can say - "I did that, all by myself."

As a side benefit, it is also ideal for a family man. He is in the house, and available, instead of off at the golf course or other 'away' location.

Oh, and I did decide some time ago that there was too much stained glass. I banned the making of sun-catchers, and suggested that if there was going to be new pieces, that they should either be big enough to take up a whole window, or replace something, like a lampshade. It didn't work terribly well (note all the masks). But it did inspire him to start bartering. We have an awesome crokinole board (similar to http://www.crokinole.com/preview1.asp?ID=24) that was made by a friend in exchange for a piece made by hubby, for example.