Resolute Beginnings / April 27, 2016 by Sasha Ward

'Resolute Beginnings' was a title that I always liked given by one of my fellow art students to her mass of smashed up and refired glass pieces. In this case it refers to drawing with colour, which I never do. So, for a trip to Assisi, Umbria, Italy, I bought a new box of watercolours and set off with resolution. If in doubt I draw the view through the window, this green view (below) was what I could see when sitting up in bed.

New watercolours                                         View from my bed                    … — New watercolours View from my bed On opening the door

Through the door there was a balcony with a beautiful view of the mountains to the north east of Assisi. The camera captures the rhythms and shadows of the balcony, the ink drawings, one example below, are better at getting into the contours and details of the landscape.

On the last evening I went as far as painting the sky from the end of the balcony. As the sun set on the other side of the building there was a riot of colour in the sky and briefly across the illuminated landscape. Phthalocyanine and cinereous blues, even dioxazine purple, more useful than I could have imagined.

With Added Plants / April 12, 2016 by Sasha Ward

This has been the first winter that I've let the plants into my studio. I thought they would get in the way and I could just carry on making them up if I wanted a plant in a design. However it has been great watching the daily changes and working out how to keep them happy. I've even bought a new one whose flowers match my current window display - a yellow and maroon auricula.

The purple plant climbing up the window has flowered in a way that frames the star on one of my grey glass samples. I thought I'd add the plant to another of the grey samples, really enjoying using two of the best glass colours, yellow and pink and the red that results where they overlap, after a long period figuring out how to work in neutral tones.

Plants doing their thing                                            Painted plant on grey glass sample — Plants doing their thing Painted plant on grey glass sample

Meanwhile, I came across a lovely neutral plant form window in a local church, St. Mary's in Great Shefford, Berkshire. It shows a stencilled vine on an opaque but very pale background, with scratches (looks like cleaning damage) that only add to the peaceful, textured atmosphere. These type of windows often have yellow silverstain details - you can imagine the dots being coloured in for example. This one looks great in its simplicity.

Vine window and detail - St. Mary's, Great Shefford

Details From Local churches / March 29, 2016 by Sasha Ward

Sometimes it's the details in the windows that are so marvellous. Once you know how to make stained glass windows, it is easy to see the hands of the makers and menders at work: choosing pieces of glass then deciding where to cut them and where to add painted detail. These pictures are from the same churches as those in my previous blog post "Nine Churches in Two Hours", and they show a range of interesting stained glass skills and effects.

St Peter, Manningford Bruce                                                              … — St Peter, Manningford Bruce St James, North Newnton

In the top of the annunciation window (above left) is a dove in an exaggerated circle surrounded by a jumble of architectural detail and pieces of very flat foliage. Every piece of glass has been painted, etched or stained in a mixture of styles, which is not uncommon. I chose the angels at the top of another window (above right) partly because of the pink/yellow combination that I love in glass but also, because the windows are so small, most of the detail is conveyed through economical painting rather than endless bits of leading.

Below are details from two of the William Wailes windows that fill the church at Chirton with a glaring, mainly red and blue, light. These windows have a lot of harsh coloured unpainted glass; the details that I found were in the top of one window where the colours are mercifully separated by stonework and lots of neutral glass, and in the bottom of another. I had been hoping to find some local landscapes behind the figures in my local windows, instead I found some great textures in the painted wood, grass and rocks around their feet.

Both from St John The Baptist, Chirton (c. 1850)

St. Nicholas, Wilsford                                                                 &n… — St. Nicholas, Wilsford Saints Peter & Paul, Marden

These feet (above left) belong to "Dorothy, wife of the Revd. Charles Hewitt M.A. Vicar of this Parish, who fell asleep in Jesus, 13th May 1928". The colours here don't say Wiltshire to me, but there is one piece of glass painting I love - the floating flowerhead on the green/yellow streaky glass at top right of Dorothy's feet. The 1958 window (above right) by Jasper & Molly Kettlewell in Marden Church is great (as mentioned in my previous blog), these feet look as if they have stepped out of an art school life room, the background colours are just what I would want to use.

And finally two pairs of satisfying panels. There is a variety of window styles in Wilsford Church; the lily and passion flower windows (above) are opposite each other in the chancel. I love the combination of the geometric and the organic where formal floral borders and medallions meet botanical detail.

I hate to say that the windows I marvelled at most where these two small fifteenth century panels mounted one above the other in a window in St. Matthew's Church, Rushall. All the glass pieces look so smooth and rounded, the decay on the paintwork is lovely and subtle, as are the faint expressions on the faces. There's even a bit of my favourite type of scratchy decorative landscape either side of the crucifix.

Nine Churches in Two Hours / March 17, 2016 by Sasha Ward

A slight exaggeration as I didn't include the time it took to get there and back, one of them was locked and one had become a private house. However these churches are all close together in the vale of Pewsey in Wiltshire - the route was Manningford Bruce, North Newnton, Upavon, Rushall, Charlton St. Peter, Wilsford, Marden, Chirton and Patney. Some of them were so uninviting that you wondered why anyone would want to sit there for more than ten minutes, others had an incredible atmosphere both inside and out.

St. Mary Upavon, locked but this is a Henry Holliday window             St. Matthew's Rushall, window and doorway — St. Mary Upavon, locked but this is a Henry Holliday window St. Matthew's Rushall, window and doorway

My favourite of these churches is St. Matthew's, Rushall, surrounded by fields. The light was streaming in and out through mostly clear windows distorting the winter trees outside. As soon as you see even a slightly bad figurative window (this church has a four seasons one from the 1960s) you wonder why anyone would bother to have anything other than the plainest glass.

It's quite easy to find a nice bit of detail in most of the nine, well seven really, churches that I visited, but that doesn't amount to a good stained glass window. What does, in my opinion, is one that changes the atmosphere inside the church by altering the light using subtle pattern and colour - three examples below, all fantastic.

Manningford Bruce                              North Newnton                                 &… — Manningford Bruce North Newnton Marden

There were also some small (about 1 metre tall) windows that I thought worked in their entirety. Rather than pick out details I want to look at the whole composition and think about the people in them. The Marden window (below right) of Saints Peter and Paul was made by Jasper and Molly Kettlewell in 1958. It is amazing to find such a bold pair of figures looking so 1950ish in a tiny and lovely local church.

Wilsford                                                    Wilsford               &… — Wilsford Wilsford Marden

Our Lady Star Of The Sea / February 27, 2016 by Sasha Ward

The facade of the church from the outside                                                   Looking up at the star from insi… — The facade of the church from the outside Looking up at the star from inside

Our Lady Star of the Sea and St Winefride" is an inviting title for a church in the fabulously named Amlwch, most northerly of all Welsh towns (it's on Anglesey). Built from 1932-37 of concrete, recently repaired but still slightly leaking, it was designed by Giuseppe Rinvolucri, an Italian engineer who married a local girl after coming to Britain as a prisoner of war during World War I.

The shape of the building, between main road and cliff, is supposedly like an upturned ship. The restoration render is black, pierced with strips of glass. A deep star surrounded by a blue mosaic circle is the only decoration on the facade which becomes interesting in itself (however true) if you read the comment below about the construction of the church.

" I think it is worthy of mention how the whole mass of imitation stone frontage was done by one plasterer long gone called Llew (Inja Rock), whose pretty unique style of work is still to be seen elsewhere around town today. He once showed me how it was done, all with a little teaspoon. What patience and what a proven good job to stand the trial of time of 40-plus years without a great deal, if any, remedial work. A sound memorial to a good working man." Robert Jones of Beaumaris from BBC North West Wales 2010

The interior is another one that makes you gasp. More pierced stars and three bands filled with white glass blocks that accentuate the shape of the roof. The only colour is blue paint on the bands and on the reveals of the stars. No clutter above shoulder height - even the lights don't look too bad. The design on the cast glass blocks - repeated and reflected irregular quadrilaterals - is what places this interior firmly in the 1930s. Apparently if the church is lit at night, three beams of light are sent from the glass strips into the sky - I'd love to see even a photo of that phenomenon.