Sisterhood Camp 2015 / Victorian Stained Glass Roundels - Blue Tit and Goldfinch

This weekend I will be joining 24 inspiring women at the Sisterhood Camp, a weekend spent under the stars at beautiful Loveland Farm.  

Organised by the amazing Lou Archell of Little Green Shed, and sponsored by Toast, the weekend promises creative workshops, feasting, wild flower gathering, dancing, waterfall swimming and camp fires.

The aim is to share skills, dreams and goals.  To encourage, and hopefully develop, a working relationship together and inspire new directions and future collaborations. 

Feeling very lucky and excited to be invited to what will hopefully become an annual event.

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I recently painted this pair of my always-popular British Bird stained glass roundels, for a stained glass studio in London.

I spotted a real goldfinch the other day, and now they might have just taken the lead in my affections from the long-tailed tit.

Victorian Stained Glass Roundel - White Lilies

I've been very remiss at posting completed projects on here lately, mainly because work is coming in back-to-back at the moment and I barely have time to photograph it, let alone edit it and get it online! Luckily I suffered a bout of insomnia the other night (which coincided with the clocks going back - probably the most annoying of all nights to be suffering), so this roundel that I painted to replace the damaged original is one of the few that I have managed to do.

Currently I'm working on stock for a couple of Christmas exhibitions (more on that soon), a large panel with lots of irises, a bear and a rabbit in the woods and some freelance work for a couple of other stained glass studios. It's a little hectic on the workbench right now...

Stained Glass Bird Roundels - Chaffinch & Long-Tailed Tit.

A Chaffinch and a Long-Tailed Tit, painted for a client in South West London.

Getting the colour right on the plumage was a bit of a battle. But three additional firings later I'm pleased with the results.

Keen nature spotters will notice that the butterfly is a Common Blue.

Old and New

I thought I had posted these already, but looking back I see that I haven't.

It's been that kind of year - just finishing one project, and straight on to the next. Photos get taken, then left on my desktop for days/weeks.

But I'm not complaining - I love having both the traditional and contemporary work on the go together, never getting bored of one or the other.

These leaves were sent off to Ely, along with the nasturtiums. I've had a really good response to the cacti set that I made, so I thought I'd tweak my chevron leaf design in the same direction, using shades of olive green glass made from recycled wine bottles. If I was the sort of person to jump on a bandwagon (I am), I might be tempted to say I was going for an ombre effect (I just did).

Hot out the kiln is this bird for a stained glass studio in Leicestershire. It's a copy of a damaged original Victorian roundel. I love the bold yellow silver stained background and intensity of the blue on the bird - often roundels are rather more muted in colour, but this one is joyful.

And this image is from a while back that I just found in a dusty folder on my desktop, but it sums up the way the year has been so far, workwise, the traditional sitting nicely alongside the contemporary.

British Birds in Stained Glass / Freelance Life

This is a little bit of what I've been working on while my shops are on holiday - some freelance painting work for other stained glass studios... mostly Victorian style painted glass centrepieces.

Very enjoyable it has been too.

It seems that British birds are quite in demand these days - top to bottom: Goldfinch, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Tawny Owl.

Coming soon: Long-tailed Tit and Chaffinch!

Busy Bee

Just a quick post to say that I've closed my Folksy and Etsy shops temporarily while I work my way through a flurry of commissions.  Lots of bird roundels to paint - including one to accompany these beautiful existing original Victorian floral roundels for a grand property in Weymouth.

I also have an exciting new stockist, so am working my way through a batch of pieces for them - more about that soon when I have some pictures to show.

I knew it was a good move not to have a plan this year!

Whilst on the subject of Victoriana, I received a set of these very beautiful glasses by Molly Hatch for Anthropologie for my birthday.  There is a sweet wistfulness about them that makes my gin and tonic that much nicer.

image courtesy of Anthropologie

Two Wrens and a Bluetit

Always nice to get the opportunity to paint some of my favourite British birds.  The two wrens will form the centrepieces for a pair of stained glass door panels in London, the bluetit is destined for a leaded fan light in Essex.

Victorian Stained Glass Hand Painted Quarries

Just finished this sweet set of 3 painted quarries for a client in The Netherlands.  

I like to say "The Netherlands".  First of all it sounds important and European, and then when you say it a few times it starts to sound silly, like a made-up place from a story book.

Anyway, as you can see from the first picture, the one on the bottom right is the original damaged quarry (my copy is on the left).  The two quarries on the top are new designs that the client requested to go in a missing section of the panel.  He chose Morning Glory and Shirley Poppy as they are both favourites of his wife.  I like things like that.

The repair of the window is being carried out by a stained glass studio over there, they sent me the glass which I duly painted and posted back.  I've been getting more and more work like this from other stained glass studios lately and I really enjoy it.

Victorian Stained Glass - Hand-Painted Floral Scrolls

I've just posted off this pair of ornate floral scrolls to Delia for a repair she's doing on a very grand Victorian entrance in South East London.  I took a few Instagram snaps so you can see how I've built up the layers - 3 firings in all (trace line, shading and silver stain).

These were very enjoyable to paint - loose and free-flowing with nice little flicks of the brush to get the twiddly tendrils just right.

The only problem was that each piece of glass was quite long - I had to order a couple of new kiln shelves to fit them on!

Scrolling

Still painting scrolls.

It's interesting work trying to match in with the original painting.  Not only do you have to match the design up and get the paint and stain colours right, but you have to copy the "hand" that painted the original.

I like it when I have to copy really expertly painted work because it pushes me on and improves my hand.

In this case, the originals were clearly painted quite hastily and are a little slapdash, so I have to go down a level.  The temptation to tidy things up is very strong, but I have to remember to leave in all those half-tones and wobbles and blobs.

I came across these lovely letterpress prints by Julia Rothman on Pinterest the other day - nice to see scrollwork getting a contemporary update!

You know those fantasy jobs you dream about landing in your inbox?  This would be one of them - a collaboration to turn these into stained glass windows.

WIP Victorian Stained Glass Fanlight Restoration

Currently working on a replacement Victorian fanlight in conjunction with my friend and colleague, Delia at Apollo Stained Glass.  

So far I've been busy trying to match the original trace paint (my invisible stained glass colleagues on Twitter have been very helpful on that!) and designing the scrolls that will surround the central number.  

The house has the original door and side panels, but the current modern replacement for the fanlight does not exactly work in harmony with them...

Victorian Birds x 2

I recently finished painting these two birds to post off to Crewe, to be leaded into a pair of stained glass panels being made by a leaded-light maker up there. They are copies from an original set of domestic Victorian stained glass door panels, with the addition of the graduated yellow silver stain background, which I think works really well, giving an almost 3-dimensional quality to them. It did mean an extra firing in the kiln though, which brought the total number of firings up to 5. Always nerve-wracking doing that final and sometimes unpredictable silver stain firing.

Victorian Stained Glass

I'd like to do a little celebratory tap-dance

(well, I would if I could tap-dance)

I've FINISHED this job which has consumed me for quite a few months now.

These panels are for a beautiful Victorian Rectory in North Dorset,

to match in with the existing originals.

However, the clients wanted to personalise them a bit,

so chose to have a long-tailed tit (their favourite bird)

depicted in the central panel of the three.

Each quarry (diamond shaped pane of glass) was hand-painted

(not screen printed) and required 4 separate firings.

There were about 75 of them in all

I was particularly proud of the little wasp flying next to the long-tailed tit.

There is a bit of a late-summer theme that carries on

in the front door panels which I also designed and made...

...more of which anon.

WIP

I've been trying (and failing) to come up with a satisfactory, not too cutesy,

kinda retroish design for a stained glass cat.

Nelly knocked one up in 30 seconds flat.

The real work is progressing slowly, but I'm hoping to have

them all finished by the end of next week. Phew.

Bugs

My latest crush is on these vintage insect diagrams

from one of my reference books that I use for Victorian bird paintings.

The last one makes me want to go digging around

in a riverbed looking for caddis fly lavae.

I spent many a happy hour doing that as a child.