Leading looking good

Half leaded now and starting to look good. The lead emphasises the flower stalks nicely. It has been difficult work, not cutting or shaping the lead, these are simples shapes, but fitting it together. And worse than that, I have run out of 6mm lead came! Thought I had more but it all turned out to be round section and we are using flat on this project. We are also using 10 mm for the main flower stem and 12mm for the border; got loads of those. 

Sweet pea window

A quick update on the sweet pea window, all the glass is cut just a lot of leading to go. The original plan was for the background glass to be moderately tinted in three pastel shades, but it just took a bit too much away from the leaves, so I re-cut them in two shades of very lightly tinted glass and it looks perfect. The main impact of this window is the beautiful elegant shape of the green leaves and the delicate pink flowers; they now stand proud as originally intended. Terrible photo but you get the picture. 

I have been asked a lot of questions about designing stained glass work, I shall attempt to answer some of these in a couple of posts soon. 

Stained glass sweet pea window

That's all the coloured glass cut and you can now get the general idea of the design. The green glass used for the leaves has a very pale wispy green vein running through it which really lights up in the sun. The shapes were very 
to cut and very wasteful, I ended up using two sheets. Not so the pink flowers, the curves interlocked perfectly and all were cut in 10 minutes from less than a third of a small sheet (see photo). I now just need to paint the flower detail on, should be nearly finished next week if all goes well. 

On with the window.

Olidoki, enough fun, back to the serious business of building windows. The sweet pea transom light is now going to be fitted inside the glass pane already there and I have a paper template the exact size and shape of the sight size. There have been a few alterations to the original cartoon and the number centre piece is finished (painted and copper foiled), so I decided to start again and re-draw the cartoon. 

The easiest way to start this is to treat it as a re-size project, in other words what we would do to fit a stained glass panel into a different size window to that it was originally built for. To start, we draw up the tight size box, centre the X and Y axis and place the piece correctly over it. We then draw its outline and finish by drawing the rest of the design around it. 

With the design complete we now have to draw in the cut line; for this I use a 2mm wide felt pen. The heart of the lead came is about this wide and you need to allow for this when cutting the glass so that it will all fit together. We start with the border lead because everything else will butt up to it. Using 12mm lead for this design, we draw both sides and the 2mm heart, I then check it all with a short piece to make sure it is spot on, then go over all the other lines to complete the working cartoon. Then it's over to the cutting table and away we go. Simples. 

Cutest dog ever ?

Couldn't resist this photo. You know that awful moment when you catch your reflection in a shop window and realise you are not Clark Gable, you're just a fat bald bloke with a moustache; it looks like poor old Jackson has just discovered he's not actually a Doberman. I can't stop laughing; mission accomplished. 

Not strictly glass

OK, this picture is not strictly glass; but as glass work is all about light, it's refraction, transmission or reflection, it's colours and the sense of life it conveys, it kind of says it all. A simple view of the sun setting over the frosted water meadows of the river Wylie, leaves you completely in awe of natures beauty. The subtle change of hues and the primeval vista which reaches into and stirs your soul. This is just what a stained glass window or art should achieve. 

What we do in life, echoes in eternity.