How to Design Stained Glass

by Jennie French

Overview

"This book is an introduction to designing for stained glass. It is directed to those people who have mastered the basic skills of glassworking but who have little or no formal art training. It is the book that I wanted when I first started out." ― Jennie French
In this invaluable guide, stained glass artist Jennie French teaches you step by step how to design stained glass projects of your own ― even if you have had no previous training in design. For inspiration, study, and practice, she incorporates eighty-four carefully selected stained glass projects into the text, ranging from a powerful portrait of an owl in flight to a touching portrayal of St. Francis of Assisi. Also included are designs for flowers, leaves, animals, birds, landscapes, and architectural studies.
As you follow Ms. French's program, you'll learn the basic principles and techniques of design. Among the key topics covered: design sources, how to approach both abstract and representational design, enlarging and reworking designs, and how to design flat as well as three-dimensional projects. A new final chapter covers techniques for developing drawing skills, adapting existing designs to your own projects, and the growing use of computer technology in the design and production of stained glass.
Designed to encourage a professional and productive attitude toward designing stained glass, this inspiring guide will enable stained glass enthusiasts to move quickly and comfortably into making unique and attractive designs of their own.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780486152486
Publisher:	Dover Publications
Publication date:	08/09/2012
Series:	Dover Stained Glass Instruction
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
File size:	22 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

Read an Excerpt

How to Design Stained Glass

With 84 Patterns

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By Jennie French

Dover Publications, Inc.

Copyright © 1994 Jennie French
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-486-15248-6

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CHAPTER 1

DESIGNING

Principles

The three main principles of good designing are structural strength, responsive color selection, and beautiful design lines. Each factor requires special attention because any single one that is overlooked can ruin the finished project.

Structural strength is often underemphasized. Glass is a nonbiodegradable substance that, barring the possibility of being smashed, can last for hundreds of years. You may not care if your work attains immortality, but wouldn't it be nice if it held together during your lifetime? The trick is to think in terms of use and abuse. Louis Comfort Tiffany's lamps have been tossed into attics and garbage pails and been carted around the world for the last ninety years or so and have still managed to survive. If many of them need restoration work before they can be sold at auction for $20,000 or more, it's forgiveable. The point is, Tiffany has withstood the test of time both artistically and structurally. Regardless of whether or not you like his work, his level of durability is worth aspiring to. Your own work can only be improved in the process.

Nothing can compete with good, clean work that not only looks and feels strong, but that also makes full use of the creative potential of glass. When you want the emphasis to be on color, light, and texture, keep your design lines as simple as possible, but not at the cost of structural strength.

There are a variety of ways to unconsciously undermine your work. For example, be wary of making overly complex designs that are difficult to cut. The limitations of cutting glass are a constant source of irritation, and by pushing these limits, you can "get even" with the medium. However, what you gain in craft expertise you might sacrifice in artistic insight. Only other experienced glass workers and related professionals will recognize what you have accomplished, and they might judge you foolish for your efforts. The possibility of being ignored or criticized is of no real consequence, but cutting intricate, convoluted shapes that are inherently weak is to be avoided at all costs. The most common shapes to alter are the hourglass, an exaggerated, deep inner curve, and a thin extended tail. The hourglass will crack at the center, the deep inner curve will crack at the apex of its turn, and the extended tail will crack somewhere along the tail or be completely covered with solder. There are other problems that you will encounter but these are the most typical.

If you still long for intricate shapes, then buy an electric diamond band saw and cut spirals in your designs. This tool is expensive, temperamental, and somewhat limited as to the size of the piece it can handle but it will cut a spiral shape (fig. 1-1).

Naturally, these cautionary words refer only to shapes intended for leading and to developing a clearer approach to design. They do not apply to perfecting your cutting abilities. To master the glass cutter, you must constantly practice cutting the most impossible shapes until they become effortless. Just bear in mind that these same shapes take longer to cut, are difficult to lead properly, crack easily, and are not necessarily a proof of your talents.

Color selection is the most time-consuming part of glass working but it is worth every second. The current movement in glass is towards simple lines and textured, clear glass with only a punctuation of color. This is possibly a reaction to all that is overstated and overstimulating in Western culture. Art movements, however, are only indications and at best, clairvoyant indications of the future. They are not rules. Your inner world takes priority over any movement and if you are filled with abundant color and curling lines, who cares if it's passé—do it! Keep in mind that more is less, and that although you want to be concise, be yourself if it kills you.

As you work, think of the thrust of the work in terms of color and clout. Glass has a very powerful effect on the subconscious. This may be due in part to light passing through the medium and changing the environment and everything else it touches. The intense jewel-like colors in old church windows create a perfect setting conducive to somber yet enlightened meditation. Traditional church music has a similar effect and when the two are combined, it is positively hypnotic. Color and light in stained glass are very closely related to music on other levels, most specifically in the sounds and silences found in music. The architect, Le Corbusier, built rhythms into his buildings by using clear light windows and open areas that create a kind of musical morse code, da-dit-da-da and so on. It is impossible to walk through one of his structures without feeling the staccato beat of his imagination. So, when you are working on a project, especially one intended for natural lighting, envision the full scope of what you want to convey. Vary the areas of color and their relative proportions. If something feels wrong, trust your intuition and try other colors. If it becomes too confusing, step back, let your eyes take a rest, or ask other people what they think of different combinations. Second opinions, especially when ignored, help to solidify and clarify your own intentions.

Many types of glass show dramatic changes within the same sheet of glass, either in swirling clouds of two or more colors or in texture and transparency. Seek out the nuances of these changes. Trap a large bubble between the lead lines, or use the color change from light to dark to show depth in a flower petal or spread the swirling areas of color throughout a design so they appear and disappear in judicious spots. As an exercise, cut the same design a few different times with entirely new glass selections.

If you ever get the opportunity to see a quantity of colored glass, such as can be seen in the retail outlet of S. A. Bendheim Company, Inc. in New York City, you might just go wild with joy, then suddenly feel utter dismay. There is so much from which to choose that it is almost impossible to find a starting point. Not since the days of LaFarge and Tiffany has there been such an abundance of glass. In fact, the full range is awesome. Even with years of practical experience (and then, the following still applies) always make a colored drawing of your design before choosing glass. It might seem like a bothersome, unnecessary step to work out a colored rendition of your project, but it isn't. You can always change your mind but it is invaluable to have some sort of predetermined guide as a reference.

Regardless of the material that you use to make an 8" × 10" (20.3cm by 25.4cm) colored drawing, be it watercolor, colored pencils, colored paper, or felt-tip pens, the colors will never exactly match those of glass. They will be flat and lifeless in comparison. Furthermore, stained glass has very definite visual weights that are different from anything you could imitate with pen or pencil. However, without the colored drawing, you would be choosing colors blindly.

When you are selecting glass, always make sure that you hold the glass up to the light source for which it is intended. Glass colors change dramatically depending upon the light source and it is easy to be misled. A sheet of blue glass, seen under fluorescent light in a store can turn out to be turquoise when seen in a window lighted by daylight. It will appear to be yet another color under incandescent light. This attention to color control must be maintained once you begin actual work. If you are working on a design that is meant to be artificially lighted, then place that type of light (incandescent, or fluorescent) beneath your light box. If it is to be lighted naturally, it is best to work on an easel, against daylight.

A light box is almost self-descriptive. It is a box with ventilation that has a plate-glass top and receptacles for lights beneath the glass. An easel, in essence, is a sheet of plate glass on which the lead lines of a design have been painted, that is then mounted in a window. By laying the plate glass over the design, you can paint on the lead lines with poster paint. When this is done, the plate glass is secured in a window and the newly cut pieces of glass are stuck into position with small gobs of Plasticine or Mortite caulking putty available in hardware stores. If a color is wrong, the piece is easily removed and a new piece cut and stuck in its place. Later, all of the pieces are removed, cleaned, and leaded together. The plate glass can be cleaned with a razor and the putty discarded.

Glass is always a dangerous medium. With this fact in mind, you can put together your own flexible structures, but always keep children, friends, pets, and bad tempers at a safe distance.

The third principle, beautiful design lines, is the theme of this book.

What is it that makes something beautiful? Is it really only in the eyes of the beholder, or is there some universal truth that transcends everything else? These questions have been bantered around for ages past and will continue to fire up personalities for ages to come, with or without my comments. The ability to create beauty is not something that can be infused into your personality. You either have it, or you have it and don't know how to tap your resources. This may be why so many people think themselves totally lacking in creativity and yet go on to be masterful cooks, decorate their homes with flair and imagination, or wear clothes with a special pizzaz. Speaking can be another creative outlet and yet the same people who swear by their lack of artistic talent can hold their friends spellbound with a story of some trivial experience. Cooking, nonprofessional decorating, selecting clothes, and storytelling are a few examples of the many things that we do creatively and yet do not call art, but they are expressions of art. The same effort and intelligence that go into decorating a home can be channeled into other creative areas. Think about this; all of these directions have one thing in common, they all deal with visible, tangible objects or experienced events. The nearest equivalent in art would be in the areas of three-dimensional materials—clay, wood, and even metal. The problem is that once you leave the three-dimensional world and lay pen to paper on a one-dimensional plane, you enter the world of abstract thought.

Abstract thought comes naturally to a very few people or there would be more than one Leonardo da Vinci to an age. For the rest of us, abstraction is a learned ability. Do you remember, or maybe still have, some of your earliest drawings from childhood? If not, look at some children's drawings. They might make you recall your own beginnings. Children lop off the top of their peoples' heads, place the figure at the bottom of the page, turn their figures at side views or front views only, and are wildly inaccurate as to relative sizes (The little dog that stands next to the person is truly a miniature.) As children progress through the school system, someone (teacher, parent, or peer) tells them to round off the top of the head, place the figure in the center of the page, add a horizon line, and to make the little dog a bit bigger. The figures improve but they are often still drawn in side or full frontal position.

To draw a person in partial profile is to understand how a three-dimensional object distorts on a flat surface so that it still appears to be three dimension ... a bit tricky to say the least. A common mistake is the size of the hand in relation to the size of the face. The hand is actually as large as the face and once this is pointed out, it seems so obvious that you wonder why it was never apparent before. To those people that refute their creative abilities and "cannot draw a straight line," the correct proportioning of the human figure on paper must seem like magic. It isn't and never was. Anyone who so desires can be shown how to draw an accurate rendition of the human figure or any other object. It only takes one person to lean over your shoulder and casually point out the obvious to forever destroy the illusion of art as magic.

The issue here then is work and development as opposed to the mystical manufacture of creativity. It is safe to assume that you are already seeking ways to fully realize your own sense of beauty and design or you would not have purchased a book on design. Although you may want to change the percentages somewhat, art is ten-percent raw creative energy and ninety-percent work, acquired knowledge, and sweat. Or as the oh-so-specific Thomas Edison is credited with saying, "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration."

The expression "I don't know anything about art, but I know what I like" is an excellent starting point, in spite of the negative connotations it may have accumulated over the years. If you can locate and pinpoint your inclinations, it then becomes a matter of repeated practice to develop these leanings. This is not a recommendation to copy another artist's style but simply to study and learn from what has gone before. When you see a work of art that pleases you, stop and figure out exactly what it is that you find so enjoyable. It is more helpful to analyze what it is that you like about something than to mull over your dislikes. Always work from a position of strength.

Getting a clear perspective and maintaining your creative attention are problems for all artists, regardless of their medium; visual arts, dance, music, writing, etc. It seems that after working on a project for a long time, the ability to judge your own work is lost. Possibly it's a matter of overexposure. Try smelling six perfumes in a row and you'll get the idea. There are many ways to restimulate your senses, the best of which is to take yourself off to a lovely island for a long weekend and forget the whole business for a few days. You might also try taping the design on which you are working to a wall and just looking at it as you go about your everyday life. Whenever you notice a line to be removed or added, take the drawing down, make the changes, and tape it back to the wall. You may see improvements on Thursday that were not obvious on Monday. The very idea of "getting a new perspective" is self-explanatory ... go and get one: tape the drawing upside down, hold it in a mirror, or toss it on the floor and stand on a chair to look at it. Although this all sounds rather silly and is, it works. Besides, when you're desperate, you'll try anything.

Another important aspect of designing for stained glass is your artistic direction and style. Basically all design is either a form of realism or abstraction. Both general categories have many offshoots and both have their own particular merits. Even if you consider a certain style to be an abomination, the style should be mastered anyway, if only for the discipline. It is always harder to work on something alien to your natural inclinations but a great deal can be learned from the exercise. It is only through total exposure that you really learn and define your own sense of beauty.

Another reason for mastering different styles is to prepare you to sell your work. Commissions are wonderful occurrences. They not only help to support the art habit, but also force you to work when you would rather be lazy and give you impetus to complete works of art. All these benefits, plus the pride of selling your work, will be denied if you are too rigid to bend with the wishes of the client. This is not to say that you should become a pawn to the almighty dollar or drachma, simply that after you complete a work of art, someone else must live with it on a day-to-day basis. If the work reflects only your ideas and does not take into account the tastes and spirit of the person by whom you have been commissioned, then the art is ultimately inadequate. Therefore, in order to develop a flexible and knowledgeable response to design, all styles should be considered equally.

Design Sources

Finding sources for inspiration can be as simple as walking down the street, looking through a book, or taking slides of things that please you. An imaginative mind can make use of reflections in water, the lines in Cubist paintings, machinery, or architecture and find inspiration in pieces of broken glass, a cloud formation, or listening to music. Sources for ideas abound in everything that touches the senses.

The human creature has a well-developed knack for borrowing great ideas from unlikely sources. The scrunch-faced little night bat is directly responsible for sonar, which affected world history, and the chambered nautilus seashell has aided the twin causes of romance and intrigue for centuries through the gift of the spiral staircase. No matter how terrific the original source of information, it is still only beauty in the raw without human interpretation and adaptation. To really make use of what already exists, without abusing it, is an art in itself. How many millions of minds examined a chambered nautilus before one struck upon the idea of a staircase along a similar plan?

When designing for stained glass, the same processes of interpretation and adaptation must be brought into play. The eye can be conditioned to translate thoughts and impressions of existing reality (or fantasy) into the medium of glass. To this end, and as a way of immediately learning something about design, you can try this experiment. Next time you flip through a magazine, pick out a photograph, advertisement, or illustration that looks suitable for stained glass and draw in some lead lines. In many cases the final outcome will be a mass of black lines that overpower the original idea but often the result will be a very workable design. Always use the fewest lines possible to describe the image, and if you really like the design, make a tracing of it and cut it in glass.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from How to Design Stained Glass by Jennie French. Copyright © 1994 Jennie French. Excerpted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Title Page,
Epigraph,
Copyright Page,
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS,
INTRODUCTION,
1. DESIGNING -,
2. DESIGNS,
3. CRAFT INSTRUCTION,
4. DESIGN 2000,
Personal Recommendations,
INDEX - (Does not include references to "Personal Recommendations" section.),