Contemporary Stained Glass Wedding Bouquet

A dream project that I finished just before Christmas; a contemporary stained glass panel depicting the bride's wedding bouquet, which was commissioned as a gift by her lovely mum.

The wedding bouquet was made by Pyrus Flowers, which is run by creative duo Natalya Ayers and Fiona Inglis, who seek out unusual, seasonal Scottish blooms, often foraged from the wild. I could while away a good few hours scrolling through their Instagram feed.

In this bouquet, tucked amongst the peachy, creamy delicate dahlias, were sprigs of wild blackberry, hawthorn, hazel and scabious, all tied together with bright, trailing ribbons in bohemian shades of ruby, turquoise, gold and plum. In order to allow the richness of the colours of the flowers and ribbons to really stand out, I used a dark inky-blue glass for the background. For the bouquet itself I included some handmade, recycled glass. The date of the wedding is painted on the central gold ribbon tied around the stems of the bouquet.

The last image is of the beautiful bride Polly, holding her bouquet, alongside her father.

Such a wonderful way to commemorate the day and preserve the bouquet forever.

(If you would be interested in commissioning something similar for yourself or as a gift, drop me a line via the contact page on my website.)

Reproduction Victorian Hand-Painted Stained Glass Heron Roundels

I fell in love with this original Victorian roundel that I pinned to my bird roundels board on Pinterest a few weeks back: that magnificent heron, the poor deflated frog and his melodramatic friends and the detailed background foliage (kingcups, arum lily leaves, water reeds and yellow flag iris) make for a very unusual and charming centrepiece.

So it was a lovely coincidence to find in my email inbox a commission to paint a pair of them for some stained glass panels going in to a new door being made by bespoke London door company Voysey and Jones.

The client wanted the left hand roundel to be a copy of the original, but the right hand one was to have a happier outcome, with the frogs having escaped their grisly fate.

A couple of close ups to show detail of feathers and frogs...

Purple Iris Stained Glass Window Commission

I recently finished this large purple iris window for a lovely couple who travelled all the way from Hertfordshire to commission.  They were so nice they even bought me a beautiful bouquet of irises when they came to collect it.  

The design was quite challenging, especially in a window of this size (approximately 10 square feet) to make it stable and strong.  Although the panel was to be fitted on the inside of an existing window, which would provide support and stop the panel from bowing over time, it was still important that the design allowed me to handle and manoeuvre it during the making, without being too unwieldy.

The glass used for the iris petals is a machine-made streaky, but it was perfect to recreate the delicate, tissue-paper quality of them.  I also added a little bit of silver stain to suggest the yellow area at the centre.  The background glass is an ultra-pale blue tinted Polish mouth blown glass, which has beautiful meandering striations, tiny air-bubbles and superb clarity, allowing the sunlight to sparkle as it comes through.  You can see on the top picture the reflection cast on the adjacent wall.

Here are some work-in-progress images...

Design:

The panel was so large I had to design it on the floor over 3 days.  In order to make it, I had to get a new workbench built (I needed one anyway, but it was good to have the impetus).  Pictured is the old, scruffy one I've been working on the for the last 10 years.  Working on the new one is like driving around in a Rolls Royce.

Leading:

Often my favourite stage of making a window... seeing it take form in front of your eyes is quite magical.

Ready to solder:
Because of the sword-shaped leaves, a lot of the lead joints were at quite an acute angle, and have to be cut well so that they can be soldered neatly.  I can get quite OCD about my leading...

Cementing:

Never the nicest job, but I had just cleaned out and reorganised my cementing shed, so it was nicer than it had been for a long time in there.

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.

Flower Festival, Ely Cathedral

I sent a couple of boxes of new stock off to The Stained Glass Museum Shop recently. Included in there were some pieces to tie in with the Flower Festival being held at Ely Cathdral between 20 - 23 June. During this time, the interior of the Cathedral will be adorned with thousands of flowers and will be accompanied by performances from choirs and orchestras from around the world - alack I'm too far away to attend, so I'll have to imagine what an incredible sight, sound and scent that will be. 

This nasturtium is a new version of some I made a few years back.  I'm such a huge devotee of the humble nasturtium - it grows easily, looks great, you can chuck it in a salad, it attracts butterflies, covers weeds, climbs up or dangles down - it's the multi-tasker of the plant world.

Currently only available at The Stained Glass Museum Shop, but I'll see how they go and may add to my Etsy shop at some point.

Contemporary Stained Glass Cactus/Succulents

Just finished making this set of 3 little plants in their pots.  They originated from a page of cactus / succulents doodling I did a while ago, but then I cut my hand doing a repair job and couldn't finish making them.

So it feels good to get them listed finally, and now I can move forward with my next new design which has also been hanging around on the back burner for ages.  More of that soon.

Some other nice plant-y things....

from here

from here

from here

I'm also really enjoying Little Green Shed Lou's Nature in the Home series - have you seen it?

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.

Waiting

Filling up my kiln with glass waiting to be fired.

The unfired paint looks matt and grey, but it will turn darker and glossier once fired.

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I like this:  The Secret Life of Plants

Moss Hedgehog

Well what else do you do when you find a hedgehog shaped piece of moss?

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!

Catching Up

Life seems to be rushing past so quickly at the moment, and I feel like I'm trying to crowbar everything I need to do into the last few days of child-free time before the summer holidays start at the end of next week.

Here's a quick round-up of what I've been doing...

I got my copy of Popular Crafts magazine today with the Q&A I did for them a while back.  Very exciting to see myself in print for the first time!

I bought a beautiful hardback book of Garden Flowers from my next-door bookshop.

There's been so much going on at the girls' school lately - the end of term art show was really impressive - how great do these sail pictures and shadow boxes look?

Filling my kiln up with various bits of various birds...

Buying this ace vintage chopping board - perfect for the campervan.

Making Isla's birthday cake, including a little marzipan Dobby the House Elf figure, at some ridiculous hour of the night (morning).  I always leave these things to the last minute...

Spring & Autumn - Contemporary Stained Glass Door Panels

Lovely to see the windows in-situe today with the sunlight streaming through them.

The doors lead to two girls' bedrooms - the elder daughter was born in October and the younger daughter has a May birthday - hence the Autumn/Spring theme.

We discussed various options for the subject matter and in the end Lisa chose a couple of my existing designs which would be worked into full size panels.

I wanted the windows to look a bit like picture book illustrations (both girls had already chosen Quentin Blake fabric for their curtains) and the colours tie-in with those in the rooms.

You can just about see how amazing the views from the bedrooms are - across the rolling fields and out to sea.  While I was there today, the colour of the sea flitted from turquoise to green to grey to indigo as the weather changed from sunshine to storms.  Stunning.