Left, window before the stained glass. Right, melting glass in the kiln.
I have just installed a new window, the first one that uses the slab glass that I’ve been melting down in my kiln (above right). I’d put some of the pieces too close together so that they touched and fused together during the firing. These pieces happened to be the same combination of colours, peach and pale yellow, and when I put them next to each other they made a slightly butterflyish pair which became the basis for the new window design (below). From there, the window practically designed itself, the different sized and coloured pieces are arranged so they look as if they float up to the top.
Window design - Left, arranging the glass. Right, glass laid on top of the design.
Left, background pieces cut. Right, background pieces sandblasted.
The background is a blue green enamel, the colour of the edges of float glass, which I sandblasted off to create a halo around each coloured slab (above right). I then painted an approximation of each glass slab colour in enamel around each piece and in a ring over the blue green background (below), you get some unexpected results where the two colours of enamel overlap.
Details from top and bottom showing background pieces painted and fired.
New window installed, 1150 x 400 mm.
The new window (still without a title) looks good in its space, and according to its owner, as if it had always been there. People have said they are reminded of pairs of glasses, but as you can see in the detail below, the slabs are opaque and textured often with a block in the centre that is a record of the size of the original slab. The backgrounds are transparent, apart from the top which I’ve sandblasted to hide the eaves and the centre piece which covers the glazing bar - a feature of the original window which bothered me, but which has now become a vital part of the design.
