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 […]

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.

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 […]

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 […]

                                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 […]

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 […]

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

  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 […]

  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, […]

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

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 […]

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

  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 […]

  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!

  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.  

  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. […]

  I’m well underway with the cartoons (full size drawing) for our 12 Apostles 154 square ft window – it’s a lot of figurative drawing for sure! Pictured here is when I was doing the first two sections, when the Peter cartoon was finished and I was drafting the Andrew figure. Some of you may […]

  We are pleased to have installed our 19th window at St Mary’s Kerrisdale this week! This latest one depicts St Mary Magdalene and turned out to be one of our favourites. It seemed appropriate that we were able to get the window in during the run up to Easter, in that Mary Magdalene was […]

It’s really great to be getting toward the end of this project. That sounds as though we found it really tedious! Quite the opposite in fact; Our Lady of the Valley has been a delight to work on. But now that John has finished leading all the sections and has completed cementing them (the term […]

I finished these water colour designs last year, not long after we were into the first wave of Covid. Now, the church is ready to start this 154 square foot project. I’ve spent days assessing what glass and etching and painting techniques we want to go with. I’ve started setting out the initial drawings for […]