Traditional stained glass pieces
Jane, a member of the Gadsby’s team, has been making traditional stained glass pieces for a few years. The finished pieces are long lasting and look beautiful.
Paints used
Jane prefers to use Vitrea 160 glass paint which is a thermo-hardening, water based, non-toxic paint. This product is UV resident and waterproof once heated, and has the benefit that you can use a standard domestic oven to heat it.
Process to create the stained glass piece
The following process is used by Jane. Other people approach stained glass making in other ways but this suits Jane and the results speak for themselves.
1. Choose your design
When starting out with a project using glass paint it is worth using a fairly simple design to minimise frustration and maximise the enjoyment you get from the process and end result. As your skills and confidence grow then you can move on to more complex designs.
The design you choose needs to be on paper outlined in a black marker pen.
2. Pick out the area to paint
Again, Jane recommends keeping it fairly simple at the start. For this project however Jane has chosen to paint the figure in the centre of the design. This image is the outlined figure.
3. Cutting the glass
Now that the areas for painting are ready Jane cuts the glass to the shapes of the figure so it’s ready when painted to go in to the oven. Jane has used a tinted pale brown glass for the base of the skin tone.
Each piece of glass, outlined in black market pen, is cut out individually and once the painting is complete and baked, all the pieces of glass are put together with lead which is cut to size using a lead knife and pieced together bit by bit. Once cut all the pieces of lead are slid together – and a cement is applied and pushed into the lead so that when the cement has hardened it gives the pieces strength. Finally, just buff up the lead with black grate-polish to finish.
This is the finished drawing for tracing the hair.
4. Tracing and painting
It helps if you have a light box to work on as it illuminates your drawing. Place the glass over the area you wish to trace (as that is what your doing).
For the lines, Jane uses a nice fine brush such as a sable or a sable mix – as they are the best brushes available. For the shaded areas she uses a stencil brush.
If you make any mistakes all you have to do is wipe it off.
When you happy with the end result allow oven to warm up to 325 degrees F and bake at this temperature for 40-45 minutes. Note: you must keep the oven at the mentioned temperature as the glass can discolour.
On this project when everything came together – this was the finished piece.
Please note that this is not a service that Gadsbys offer to clients – just an example of the private work done by one of the highly skilled and knowledgable Gadsby’s team shown for your interest.
Other examples of Jane’s stained glass work
