Early Autumn botanical inspirations. Light, colour, shadow, texture & forms.
A glimmer of sunlight through the clouds & in-between the rain showers.
A wonderful and inspiring visit to the National Botanic Garden of Wales. #GardenOfWales
We have been working offsite this week on some in-situ repairs to a series of 1950s stained glass windows. The residential home has bay windows each with feature leaded panels and stained glass top lights. Most of the decorative panels contain some unique handmade mouth-blown coloured glass.
The studio is in the process of working on a round window for a private residence in Stourbridge. The design is based on movement and inspired by nature.
Alongside the glass design, the clients have commissioned a wooden window frame for the stained glass to be installed into. We have been working with ‘Jamie Hubbard Creative Woodwork’; also based at the Ruskin Glass Centre in Stourbridge, who has produced a fantastic wooden frame.
Once the stained glass panel is complete, it will be double glazed and be ready for installation in the clients home.
Classes, Workshops and Courses 2012 to 2013
Its been a great year of workshops, classes and courses held at the studio. It has been a mix of stained glass and fused glass and the standard of work has been very good.
Many of the students have returned to enrol on another course throughout the year and this shows from their high standard of craft skills and their unique designs. I have put together a selection of photos of glasswork from the students and participants of the past year.
We have been working with Spring Vale Primary School as part of their ‘Art Week’. The idea is to create a stained glass window for their entrance, which will incorporate their school name and logo, surrounded by eight fused glass panels. The school located in Wolverhampton has over 250 pupils with 8 classes from nursery up to year 6.
The project began with each pupil drawing a 20cm square artwork inspired by nature.
As part of their ‘Art Week’, I spent an enjoyable day showing and demonstrating my glass making techniques. The pupils were keen, interested and asked lots of good questions. We worked with each class talking about their artworks and what they would like to see in their window.
These artworks were then taken back to the studio and one was chosen to represent each class. The chosen design will then be made using the fusing techniques, using outline enamel, frits and mosaic gems.
We have just finished an Art Glass wall panel for clients using our ‘Liquid Light’ fusing technique.
The commission started from a series of fabric and wall paper samples that the clients had brought in to show us. Their colour theme was red, gold and beige. We used ruby reds, ambers and clear glass to match their colour palette as close as possible. The ‘Liquid Light’ technique creates a wonderful overlay of colour and several tones are formed when these colours mix.
The panel will be mounted on to a canvas backing using polished brass/gold fittings and will hopefully look fantastic as an Art Glass feature in their private residence.
We recently held a stained glass taster day for two friends as part of a Birthday celebration. The day started with an introduction to the craft and then designs were selected and colours chosen. After a brief coffee break they both started cutting the glass to their chosen pattern.
After lunch in the organic cafe they both finished cutting the glass and moved on to lead up their panels. By the late afternoon both had soldered, cemented and polished their panels. A busy, but enjoyable day and the satisfaction that they created their own unique glasswork to take back home.
We are now into 5 weeks of the stained glass course that we are running for this Summer term. The light evenings are a blessing this time of year and the students get to choose and work the glass with natural daylight for most of their class. Their progress is great and at this stage everyone will be ready for leading up next week.
Both students are working on projects that they have designed themselves.
On Saturday we held a one day workshop in stained glass. The students learnt the basics of the craft, which gave them a taster of the processes involved in creating a leaded panel. Designs were either chosen on the day or developed before the session. Some of the participants had previous knowledge and skills of glass cutting and were able to undertake more complex patterns. The students worked well, with a busy and focused day. The panels turned out great and were left with the studio to cement and finish this week. After their final clean and polish they look fantastic.
We have just finished running our Spring Term course in fused glass. The course was run over 5 weeks and the participants had a choice of either a day or an evening session. The course went well and the students initially explored some of the fusing techniques for test pieces and then went on to create their light catcher designs.
The last two sessions the students have been working on their final piece for the course, designing and making some fantastic glasswork. Each student used various fusing techniques to create their artworks. Their unfired glass panels were fused in the electric kiln and then were either kiln-formed using moulds into glass bowls/platters or left as a standing panel.
We are running a series of fused glass workshops with Heathfield School Art department and year 11 pupils.
The project started with a demonstration and practise glass cutting session at the school.
The pupils have developed their designs in their GCSE Art classes and will work from these to create their fused glass bowls. The final fused glass artworks will go towards their coursework and a ‘end of year’ exhibition.
On Saturday afternoon we held a fused glass workshop for a small group of young people.
The afternoon went well and they took their time to work on designs for a hanging panel and created unique artworks.
Their fused glass panels were made to their designs using a combination of coloured frits, stringers, gems and glass shapes.
Transparent Glass Studio 