Artistic licence

I enjoyed seeing my old work again, so here is some more. Above is a page from my 1987 sketchbook when I was designing a window for a house in Oxfordshire. This design was rejected  because of its industrial feel, the pylons in particular - outrageous because pylons are such a huge part of the Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire landscape. 

I remember when I was sketching telegraph wires next to an old barn when I was about fifteen, my Dad suggested to me that I didn't need to put the wires in the drawing. He explained this was called "artistic licence". It was a great relief to discover that I could leave things out if I wanted to, but pylons and telegraph poles are usually the things that I decide to leave in.

Pylons drawn and photographed near Yate                                                 Drawing from the attic at Kelmscott Manor

Brown and yellow windows

The first panels I made at The Royal College of Art (Albert Hall in the background) in 1983

Painting on glass is to me the most interesting aspect of stained glass. When I was a student at the RCA before I developed my own way of using glass enamels I used the traditional glass painters' opaque iron oxide and yellow silver stain. 

Imagine my amazement when I went to the V&A last year and saw that some windows had appeared using these same techniques and on the back of rolled plate glass, usually used in industrial buildings. These were commissioned when the V&A opened from William Bell Scott (friend of DGR & WM) but were already out of fashion by 1910-13 when they were removed and stored.

Two of four staircase windows by William Bell Scott in the V&A made from 1867-9

I saw an example of these same painting techniques in a series of four leaded windows to Noble Women in the Lady Chapel of Liverpool Anglican Cathedral. They were made by Powell and Sons between 1910 & 1920, lovely design, lovely subject matter including Christina Rossetti on the right, below.

Signatures assembled

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Since the 18th of June, visitors to The Brewhouse have been signing their names with a diamond tipped pen on scraps of glass. I have now trimmed them all down and assembled them in the style I had planned. I will be leading this together to make a square hanging panel over the next couple of weeks. There are 103 signed pieces I think (my numbering system went awry) with more than one signature on some pieces, surrounded by a border of clear textured glass. 

You can click on the picture to enlarge it, but you may not be able to read your name against the graph paper background. I photographed two of the practice pieces in daylight outside (below), showing a contrast between white writing on clear glass with a black background and black writing on white glass. It will be interesting to find the best light conditions for the finished piece.

The Collected Letters

I've finished the last volume of The Collected Letters of William Morris edited by Norman Kelvin.  Only one mention in this volume of the walk to Buscot Wood that he often took with his daughter Jenny.  Now that I have my OS Explorer Map with Kelmscott in the middle and the borders of Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Berkshire laid out on one sheet, I can see where they walked to. I think I've been drawing the woods from "the big field" between the Manor and the river: the dark shape on the left and middle left in the drawings below.

The most detailed descriptions in the last volume are connected to the Kelmscott Press, the collecting of illuminated books and manuscripts and the designing of borders and lettering. The tiny scale of his drawings when you see the real things is incredible.

WM illustrations from the Collected Letters

I've done a few drawings of the vines on Kelmscott Manor and just spent an absorbing hour on a brush and ink copy of the "y" from a set of initial letters with vines (above right). 

These two drawings are mine.

WM on the Tour de France route

I found two churches with William Morris windows on the Stage One Tour de France route. I watched the riders come through Otley this morning, then went to visit the churches. The first one, St. Wilfrid in Pool in Wharfedale, was decorated with bicycles and had a "Le church, le tour, le welcome !" sign but was locked.

The second, St. Margaret's in Ilkley, is a Norman Shaw church. There are lots of good windows inside, including one of four angels (below) designed by WM and made in 1894. It looks great and in composition is so much simpler than the rest of the windows (mostly made by Powell & Sons) in the church.