Following on from David’s provocative tip about painting with darkness, I’m going to make my own contribution with some clips I filmed while he was painting St. Martha’s head. Click here to watch the video demonstration
From the monthly archives:
March 2010
James Hogan – a designer and glass painter who worked on many windows in Liverpool Cathedral – made this observation:
“Stained glass painting has no relation whatsoever to picture painting.
It is an art of its own, dealing with the transmission of light through coloured material, whilst painting is the application of a coloured pigment on a flat surface upon which light is reflected.”
"Oi, girls, let's get Hogan - he's disqualified us!"
A neat, analytical distinction, this.
As you would expect, it risks disqualifying substantial quantities of painting on glass.
But never mind that for now. I am sure that the ladies on my left will set dear Hogan straight.
And also never mind Hogan’s assumption that stained glass painting is an art. Ah, “art” is such a slippery word – especially in these post-modern times of ours.
Instead, join me on a journey to the Dark Side.
This way, please. Click to continue – if you dare …
Our ever-collecting client, just because he liked it, had bought a 19th century window from an auction house in Paris, France.
The trouble was, it was the wrong shape and too short by 10 inches for the particular place he had in mind within his ornate lakeside villa. [click to continue…]
Here’s a shot of the fitting … [click to continue…]
It works, that’s what people say. They are astonished by the effect of the glass on the space around it.
Photographs come later – tonight some sleep.
You spend weeks and months on the design – moving from tiny black-and-white sketches to 1:10 half-toned approximations; and then onwards to a full-sized water-colour painting, plus a full-sized black-and-white tonal drawing (to give a clear instruction to us painters about where the light must pass through really clearly) …
And then you finally come to cut the glass, and paint it, and silver-stain it, and also plate it (in order to create the perfect colour as you see it in your mind), then you paint and silver-stain the plating.
At last the piece is encased in lead, with neatly mitred joints to show each graphic angle. Cemented and polished. Fitted in its various frames with steel armatures.
So, tonight, it lies “finished” and strapped against our A-frames, in readiness for tomorrow’s installation, but – exactly because it is an architectural piece – until tomorrow, when we fit it, who knows what this window really is?
That is our responsibility as designers and painters of stained glass. Responsibility to the donor and his memories and his loss. Responsibility to the building itself. And responsibility to the people who will enter the building, each with their own particular memories and their own particular loss.
These unimaginable things matter – nothing else.
