Stained Glass Windows

[Skya]

Bear with me here, I rather suck as this whole writing thing, but I'm going to try to clearly (heh) explain how I went about making the stained glass windows for my last iron painter entry.

To start off with I went and made a wire frame using thin brass wire and and some .014 Soft Flex Wire that way back in the day I used to use for beading. We also called it Tiger Tail wire, though for the life of me I cant remember why. basically I did this by laying out the wires on my slip grip mat and gluing them together with super glue. I started with the outside of the framework and worked my way into the more detailed areas, so that the finer lines would have more support while drying, and also because the soft flex wire has a lot of spring to it so needs to be held in place till the superglue sets. I will mention that I've found it's better to create the window in whatever frame you want to put it in, as opposed to making it and then putting it in. I had to do a fair amount of shoving to get my frame into the right place with my first window.

Once the frame is in place, primered and then given a coat of whatever the darkest color you want to use in your shadows is, it's time to start working on the glass.. After experimenting with a number of different mediums I finally settled on Golden Self Leveling Clear Gel. It's got a kind of milky look to it while wet, but it dries entirely clear and nice and smooth, doesnt hold a lot of texture the way the Woodland Scenics water effects does. What I'd do is lay out an amount about the size of a dime on my slip grip (I love these things by the way, everything cleans up off them even superglue), I'd mix in just a little bit of ink , or paint, and I'd leave it looking kinda swirled, this gives a bit more depth to the look of the glass, as real glass is rarely one flat color and has some texture and bubble to it, especially the tiffany stuff. How much ink you add will vary the intensity of the color of the glass and how opaque any paint you add is will vary how much light will pass through it. Once I've got my medium mixed to how I want it, I then take a toothpick, dissecting needle or something else with a good point and glob it up on the tip of it. I then take that tip and circle the edges of the area I'm adding the glass to, then I use a kind of pulling motion to connect it all together, kinda like soap bubbles as a kid. While that's setting you'll want to have the window straight up and down, and occasionally turn it upside down so that gravity doesnt pool the medium at the bottom of your panes.

That's pretty much it, once they're dry you can always add more ink to brighten up the colors if you want. just remember that any ink added afterwards will only be on the surface so it will pool in any slight crevasses that might have been created. Hopefully this was helpful, let me know if you've got any questions.

[Thryth]

Thanks for taking the time to write that. I don't know if I will ever try it, but it's nice to know how, if I decide to.

[Jabberwocky]

Great tutorial! Thank you, Skya!

[Lordfishbane]

Ill take 50. Chop, chop!!

[Nathan Caroland]

Nice work Noel.

[PaintMinion]

You forgot the part about the interesting swear words... ;-)

[stubbdog]

very informative. Thank you. I know I will be trying it at some point.

[Skya]

You forgot the part about the interesting swear words... ;-)

Oddly enough, this was the part of the project I swore the least at. Which is saying something given that overall this piece probably has my record for most swearing done it's presence *ever*. I did some while I was trying to get the framework into the wall, but other then that I really enjoyed experimenting with the different acrylic gels, figuring out their properties and how much ink or paint I needed to achieve certain affects.

[PaintMinion]

True, I remember swearing at building and priming more than the window part. And it really did turn out to be beautiful--something you should be very proud of pulling off, especially in the time given! See you tomorrow...

[Wren]

Very interesting, thanks so much for writing this up, and for the pictures too!

[Thryth]

Thanks again for writing the article. I had a thought about this. I am looking for a different scenic water to use. Do you think that the Golden Self Leveling Clear Gel would work for that?

[Skya]

If you want pools of water definitely. If you want something you can easily shape into things like spell effects, waterfalls, waves and such I'd go with one of their regular or heavy gels. Basically they have an entire line of gels of varying thicknesses and the thicker the gel the more texture it will hold. They're very cool and worth experimenting with, they also come in matte and semi-gloss though I haven't done any experimenting with those.

[EldinTux]

Ummm - food for thought....

Thanks Noel