Completed dome!

I don't always get to see the finished product - especially when it's not my job and I'm working for someone else. But today I got an email with pictures of the finished dome in place! Such a nice surprise! I love the delicate colors chosen for this one, it's all very subtle, and I think the coloring of the heads blends really well. I forgot to ask if the client was happy with it?! But I'll try and find that out soon.

Course, I can't take credit for much of this job - just those two little faces. The rest all goes to Bonny Doon Art Glass.

Speaking of faces, I just completed three commissioned folk art paintings of three young sisters.

They will be appearing next time :)

Completed Cherubs!

The Cherubs have been colored with stain and enamel, and have been delivered back to Bonny Doon Art Glass where they will be added to the oval dome ready for soldering and installation.

I'm sure they are happy to finally get their wings, as being a floating head can have it's downsides.

Pictures are of the finished heads on the light box, and waxed in place on the side of the dome mold. I took that picture from an angle so you can see the curve of the glass piece. The paint is placed face down (so the owners will see it on the inside) but note the blue eyes from the back look weird as I enameled and stained the back side of the glass. This is done for many reasons.

Stain always is brushed on the back side of glass, as it has a tendency to 'metal' (go metallic looking) which obscures the glass and image. It does this because silver stain is indeed made with silver nitrate, so it can kind of turn to metal in the kilning process. The enamel can be painted onto the front or back of the glass, but is kind of a hit and miss firing process. By painting the back in this case, it gives the faces a glowing color from behind, and if the color turned out all wrong, I can just acid it off and start again. If I had layered the enamel on the front on top of the paint, and the color came out wrong - I would have pretty much ruined the whole piece, and many hours of careful painting, so that is why on this occasion I painted the back!

There! That was the technical bit. Check out the dome picture too, for the great custom yellow bevels used for the angels wings. You don't often see colored bevels, as colored plate glass is fairly unusual, and I think the colors work great with the finished heads. What do you think?

Painting Angels

Suddenly there is a lot of work to do!

This is a sketch for two angel faces I am painting on glass for John Forbes at Bonny Doon Art Glass. I occasionally do painted glass work there, most recently on the Golden Butterfly.

These Angel faces are for a beveled glass oval dome, and are the only painted pieces - the rest being custom slumped beveled glass, thats why the face is the only shaded area on the sketch and the rest is the lines, or 'cartoon' to show where the glass will be cut. I need to do a detailed pencil drawing such as this before I start to paint on the actual glass, as I follow the drawing very closely.

Painting on glass is also a kind of reverse to tonal drawing, in that I cover the glass with pigment, and them slowly remove the darkness, as opposed to building it it, as you would with pencil on paper. Because of that, I need to know what my 'end result' is supposed to look like, before I start, otherwise it would be very hard. It's bad enough that the pigments used to paint on glass feel like you are painting with cocoa powder - they are very difficult to work with, and have no tolerance for mistakes. If you make a tiny wrong mark, or scratch, or even drop a tiny dot of water on it - it can ruin a day's work. All adds to the stress! But also to the satisfaction, when you get it right.

Each face will be fired at 1150 degrees several times, as I build up the layers of paint. I am up to three firings so far, and there will be several more, including stain and enamel firings at a lower temperature.

I will post pictures of the glass once they come out the kiln!