What We Can Do For You

Hey there and hello! Here’s what we can do for you.

What we can do for you

There are many ways of us working together:

You can let us send you tips and techniques each week – a good way to improve your glass painting skills, because, when you subscribe to this blog or join the free newsletter, each week you get a free tip or technique. More details here or use the box on your right

Spend time browsing this site. It’s packed with technique and insight into kiln-fired stained glass painting. There’s a useful list of topics a bit further down in the right-hand column.

Get these glass painting e-books and videos – they are clear, complete and excellent. You get step-by-step instructions and photos which tell you exactly what to do and why.

You can learn with us at the studio, starting with a two-day intensive foundation course where you’ll learn how to do all your water-based glass painting in just one firing.

If you’re OK with glass painting but not so good with design, we can re-draw your full-sized designs so you can concentrate on painting them.

If you have a studio, we can come and work with you there on a project of your own.

We also give seminars and demonstrations. At a recent event in the Netherlands, a professional glass painter commented she’d been looking 20 years to learn what we had shown her in just five hours.

These are the main ways we can work with you – I’m sure there are others. Write to us when you want to know more.

And if you want to know more about who we are and why we have the skills to help you, please read on.

Us?

First up, by way of background, there are two of us here. Up above on your right, that’s Stephen on the left and David on the right: Stephen Byrne and David Williams.

The studio’s name is “Williams & Byrne”.

The Maker's Mark of Williams & Byrne

And here’s our maker’s mark because glass painters don’t usually sign their work with their own names. Instead they make a distinctive mark.

So that’s what we put somewhere on every window we make. (More on makers’ marks and where we hide ours right here.)

As for the studio itself, it’s gorgeous.

The Studio

It used to be a barn. But now it’s a spacious light-filled studio, surrounded by pastures and farmland, and overlooked by the hazy purple hills of Shropshire.

Shropshire?

If you imagine rural England at its most perfect and peaceful, then you’ll see Shropshire.

Heaven, yes!

And here’s the road to the studio:

A part of England which is Heaven on earth ...

The worst traffic jam is when the cows are taken to be milked at 8.05 each morning and at 16.30 in the afternoon …

Maybe you’ll come and see this for yourself one day – it’s quite a sight.

Now we’ve been here for eight years now. So now we don’t compete for the design and painting work we do. Ever.

Like just recently a tycoon asked us to design and paint 16 stained glass skylights for his dining room ceiling.

He didn’t ask anyone else.

End of story.

Or rather, start of story, because it’s a lot of work … but every success creates its own problems, and we’d rather have the problems of success than anything else.

Not least, it gives us more to share with you.

Like the story of how we won this tycoon’s trust (which you can read here).

And now let’s get down to some biographical information.

David Williams

David Williams

Born in 1954, married to a painter (who is a good source of brushes), three grown-up children (one is a paleontologist and makes Indiana Jones look like a cissy).

Precocious. Yes, certainly. – He went to art college while still at school (this also got him released from School Games and Latin). Then David just “decided” he was going to work with John Piper. Things didn’t quite work out like that …

Instead he straight away got an 8-year apprenticeship with Patrick Reyntiens who as it happens (amongst many other projects) was busy reinterpreting Piper’s designs for Coventry Cathedral.

David followed his demanding time with Patrick at another well-known studio – Hardman’s of Birmingham, founded by Hardman and Pugin in 1838.

Thus 15 years as Chief Designer and Studio Manager there.

Which brought him into contact with the most amazing glass from just about every era.

Now it’s all very well doing what other people ask you to do, but there comes a point in each of our lives when we simply must do things for ourselves and because we freely choose to do them for no other reason that this allows us the best use of all our talents.

For this reason, in 2004, David left his influential position at Hardman’s and joined forces with Stephen to create a different kind of studio.

Crazy.

Ah – but calculated risks are what make life fun.

Stephen Byrne

Stephen Byrne

Born in 1959, married to a musician and book reviewer (who is a good source of books), with a seven-year old daughter, Nell (whose name we chose on the basis that “Nell Byrne” sounds like someone who’ll be able to throw a good punch if ever she needs to).

Brought low by the realization, aged 15, that he would never succeed a concert hall violinist, so instead threw himself into academic study.

Result: a doctorate from Oxford University and an empty soul – an outlook only slightly softened by 12 years’ buccaneering as a trouble-shooter in the City of London.

And you get to a point where you have to say, Enough!, when you can do nothing else except leave and look for a different way of living.

Stephen discovered his answer through an apprenticeship at Hardman’s where of course he met David.

Now – an apprenticeship at the tender age of 40 may seem lowly, but it really doesn’t matter starting again if at last you’re going where you want.

This is one reason amongst many why teaching and exploring ideas with other glass painters (novice and professional) are fundamental to the daily rhythm at Williams & Byrne …

The glass painter’s method is a method which answers many questions.

And that’s enough about us. Except to say that David is an artist and Stephen is a copyist.

The craft of stained glass has separate niches for different kinds of skill provided they are done well and with respect.

Now please just busy yourself with all the techniques and ideas you’ll find here.

They are what this site is all about.

And how you use them – that … is the really exciting thing!

P.S. For free glass painting tips and video demonstrations, be sure to sign up for this free newsletter.