Blog

Show and Tell

We had a lovely lunch with the Epiphany Sacred Arts Guild yesterday to celebrate our new studio, followed by a “Show and Tell” of the last five windows in our Old Testament series for St Joseph’s Langley. Good food and good friends!  

Why painting is important

One of the best artists I’ve known personally, James A Crombie ARCA, AMGP, said to me “If you think you know everything in a medium, you have no where else to go with it”. He was in his eighties at the time. Painting by hand with brushes in the medium of stained glass is something I’ve been […]

Creating a cartoon (full size drawing)

The process of creating authentic stained glass has many steps and uses many different types of artistic skills, but I think my favourite part is drawing the full size cartoon. The word “cartoon” derives from the Italian word “cartone” meaning large paper, artists would use this preparatory drawing as a blueprint for the primary artistic endeavour which was in a […]

St Peter’s Church, South Barrow, Somerset, UK

We recently received a blast from the past in the form of a letter from St Peter’s church in South Barrow, Somerset, UK. Back in 2003 we created a window for this lovely church which depicted symbolism of St Peter and an abstract expression of the beautiful local countryside. At that time our primary contact […]

New Studio

  It’s so great to be finally working on our commissions in our new studio! The renovations and moving were hard work but it was so worth it. We took the opportunity to build bigger glass racks, upgrade the lighting system in our light table, improve the leading benches, add an additional bench for glass cutting […]

Renovating Our New Studio

We’re working hard renovating our new studio – it will feel like a rest when we finally get back to creating stained glass! I’m so excited to get moved in and make the most of the wonderful north facing light.

St Francis Xavier, Vancouver

Last week was the culmination of twenty months of hard work, with the installation of our Twelve Apostles windows at St Francis Xavier, Vancouver. We are so pleased with how the windows look and how they have changed the interior of the church. It is quite a large space and the strong colour and shape really […]

Noah’s Ark

Happy BC Day from sunny Vancouver! I recently finished the cartoon (full size drawing) for the next in our series of 12 Old Testament windows. This time it’s the turn of Noah and his Ark, and we’re looking forward to getting started on fabricating this one. Anyone notice that in depictions of this theme the […]

Glass Painting

                                My old boss used to say; “a good glass painter will improve upon the cartoon”,  generally if I was painting one of his. It’s nice to be able to say that my painter has achieved this (under my critical […]

Painting faces in stained glass

In glass painting the oxide is applied over the entire surface of the glass and removed to produce the tones, semi-tones and highlights – painting in the negative. It’s not the brush mark itself that you’re solely concentrating on, but the shapes created around it that give you the illusion of three dimensions. The most […]

Adam and Eve Window in Progress

  Painting an expression on a snake……not an everyday occurrence.

Painting Drapery

  I am painting a LOT of drapery lately with our 12 Apostles windows. The long sweeping sections are the most challenging! There will be plenty of light to illuminate these windows, so we can use good depth for the base matt and create some really strong highlights directly against the darkest shadow with plenty […]

Old School Tip

  Today I have an old school pro-tip that some of you may not have heard of – using melted beeswax to temporarily adhere your pieces of glass for painting to your tempered glass easel. In this way you can work upright and get all your painted detail to follow through accurately. It does, however, […]

Best Wishes for Christmas

  Wishing you all a very happy and safe Christmas and New Year. ~ Laura & John

Stained Glass Painting

Stained glass painting is a fascinating (and occasionally frustrating!) process. Our old boss Roy described it as not fixating on the mark the brush makes, but the area around it. It’s quite different to other types of painting as it is predominantly done in the negative, which involves a different kind of thinking and planning to […]

Studio Life

  I love it when a plan comes together….. Restoration pieces completed and ready for installation this week, new glass painting well underway.  

Twelve Apostles Project

  There has been quite a bit of etching to do for our Twelve Apostles project. To achieve this effect, a specialist “flashed” glass is used; when this glass is made it is blown to have a thin “flash” of colour over (usually) a clear glass. A resist is then applied to the areas where you want […]

The Twelve Apostles

  Lots of acid etching in the top sections of this full-on figurative commission, and of course a lot of painting to do. The full size drawings (known as cartoons) are completed for the first 6 of our Twelve Apostles project. Got to get the next 6 drawings finished asap!

Our Lady of the Valley, Coldstream, BC

  We are just back from installing this window at Our Lady of the Valley, Coldstream. Gorgeous mouth blown glass, acid etching and a plethora of glass painting techniques were used to create the flora, fauna and vibrancy of the local area.  

Glass Painting

  The majority of painted, stained and kiln fired glass you see in buildings throughout the world are created by painting in the negative. What do you mean by this I hear you say? The paint oxide is applied over the entire surface of the glass and removed to produce the tones, semi-tones and highlights. […]