Recycled Church Glass Cross - In The Sale Tent

I absolutely love this cross.  The glass came from a church in Adrian that a wrecking ball was about to demolish (or the story goes from the person who gave me a box of treasured glass pieces from that church).

Because I can't see beautiful glass go to waste, I have made many crosses of various sizes and shapes using the painted glass pieces.  This one is unusual because every piece of glass in it has been recycled from that church.

I have an old window in my sale that will stay in the sale until Saturday.  If it doesn't sell, I will be dismantling it and turning into similar pieces like the one shown here.  It takes up less space in a box than it does in a frame.


Pat Deere

The Family That Prays Together

What an honor to create a family cross for this beautiful family!

The photo below shows this glass work in several shots so you can see the final piece, a close up with the background glass, and another close up showing the very textured state the crushed glass was left in.

I love working with various sizes of crushed glass, including frit to give the frayed edge seen on this piece.

For my work, lately I have been using System 96 in sheets.  I cut them to size big enough to fit into my glass crusher.  From there, I sort out the sizes so I can layer the glass in the way it will work out best for each piece.  For things like this where I want a frayed edge, I use a simple mold cut out of foam board and layer the glass until it gets no thicker than the 1/2 board I am using.  Carefully, I pull up the mold, rearrange any stray pieces, and fire it to about 1300 degrees.  The background with names and dates was fired separately.  Next, the glass is glued using KOA 300 and an ultraviolet light to set it.  This gluing method has been working very well for me on transparent glass.

What a beautiful wedding gift for somebody special in your life, don't you think?  Elizabeth, thank you for giving me the opportunity to give you a gift I know your family will enjoy for a long time to come.  Because this has to go through 2-3 firings in the kiln, advance notice for gifts of this type are necessary.

Pat Deere

LINKS:  Click HERE For more information on custom designed stained glass by Pat Deere.

New Bern, NC (Final Firing - I Think)

Sometimes the hardest thing about painting, is knowing when to quit.

Taking a look at these photos you can see where I started on the bottom left.  Mixing glass paints with water, no gum arabic this time, and grinding it with a glass muller allows me to get a fine surface to work with.

Once the glass paint is mixed to my satisfaction, I paint a thin surface on the already fired glass.  Not mixing gum arabic in with the paints allows me to easily remove paint I don't want on the finished piece.  It brushes off with a fine bristle brush, a course brush, a cloth, or whatever other tools work to get the result you want. 

This time I will heat the kiln to 1250 degrees, because I am anticipating that this will be my final firing.  Once out of the kiln, and cooled, I will make that decision.

Can't wait!

Pat Deere

Glass Painting for Church In New Bern, NC

WHAT A FUN DAY!

I love watching the process of other artists at work and thought... maybe somebody is interested in how glass painting is done.

The first photo makes it look like I am ready to take off, but I am just protecting my lungs from airborne glass paint.

The whole process is not shown here but what you will see is how I am approaching this project.  The glass has already been through one firing where I outlined what I wanted to with simple lines.  That paint was mixed with clove oil, which is a medium I love to use when I need nice long strokes.  Once the lines were painted, fired to 1200 degrees, and the glass cooled overnight, I began the process for the 2nd firing. 

On this panel I chose to use a black tracers paint, mixed in a little gum arabic powder to stiffen it a little, ground the glass with water until I got the consistency I was looking for.  Actually, it came out a little stiffer than I planned, meaning it did not come off as easy with a brush as I hoped for.  Originally, I considered washing it all off and starting again but I like the look that I ended up with. 

So, to make a long story shorter... what you see here is Top Left:  Me in my mask, the next six photos on the right show the process of brushing off unwanted glass using a variety of tools and brushes, and the final piece in the kiln on the bottom left prior to firing once again to 1200 degrees.

Next posting will be my out of the kiln photo and my 3rd, and possibly final, firing.  Make it a great day!

Pat Deere

Blessed Savior Lutheran Church - Vandals at it again!

Painting on glass is one of my favorite things to do. Unfortunately, for this church, this was not a repair they are excited about.

Blessed Savior Lutheran is a small country church in Blissfield, Michigan. There is a small, but very friendly, group of people who attend church there.

In 2004, I was asked to repair/restore most of the windows in their church. They purchased the building and it had been sitting empty for quite a while. Vandals had their way with a lot of the windows. Some of them were completely releaded, some were repainted, and some of them were ok the way they were. We got them removed, repaired and reinstalled and they looked wonderful for about five years.

Recently, vandals were at it again. To the left are 3 pieces that were cracked in the process. You can see where they belong in the full size picture towards the bottom of the window. I will be painting these in two separate firings before reinstalling them into the panels. Somebody deliberately broke through the plexiglass with a brick before going back and throwing a rock through the hole they created. As much as I enjoy working with glass, this is not the way I like to get new projects. My hope is that people will look out for suspicious characters and report them. This is a large cost for a small church to bear.

This is the painted glass after it has come out of the kiln for the first time. The heavy black outlines and the veins of the leaves were painted in with Tracing Black 401 from Reusche with a little zinc added to dull it down a little. This helps it match the existing glass paint which has lost some of it's shine. More photos to come after the next step comes out of the kiln.

Pat Deere

Links: Interested in glass restoration for your church? Click here.
or Glass Painting Classes? Click here.

MTA Window Update & The Artistic Dilemma

The window I am designing for the Mass Transportation Authority at the Flint Bus Depot is moving forward. I met with the committee today and proposed my design. The painted samples here are similar to what I expect to use in portions of the window I am creating for the Arab American Civil Rights topic.

I believe the committee liked my design but did not feel the need for the added expense required to give it the detail I felt it needed. But... time will tell. I haven't officially heard their decision yet.

Now the artistic dilemma... do I stick to the budget or plunge forward with what will make it an awesome piece of art? My business sense tells me to stick to the budget, my artistic heart tells me to do what I think will best represent the topic and my abilities.

Pat Deere

Reproduction Painting

Reproducing old glass can be a trial.

This was the "perfect" trial. This glass came from a historic home in Dexter. It took a number of glass paint applications and firings to get to this point.

First, the outlines were traced in brown and fired at 1250 degrees. Second/third firings added brown details/shading. The fourth firing/painting was for the amber you see here - the lighter yellow. Fifth - the glass is prepared for the 2nd coat of silver stain which is the darker color around the borders and center of the glass. It will be fired at 950 degrees. Then, the final process will duplicate the sandblasted design in the clear areas of the glass.

Problem areas were: matching the silver stains (amber colors). I had to use the most expensive stain available to get the correct match. The tracing brown was mixed with zinc to keep the shininess (is that a word) down. The idea is to keep it looking true to the era. I used a kiln shelf material that was fairly new so it could be cut to fit my kiln and hold this size piece of glass. The shelf kept causing bumps in my glass, thus additional firings until it was figured out. Lastly, the glass was very weak and one piece of the original panels broke in my hands as it was being tenderly dried.

What this does to me as an artist????? Causes aggravation, extended deadlines, wonderful learning experiences, and a clearer direction about how to proceed on the next one. Have to look at the positive side or it will drive me crazy.

Pat Deere

Classes: Glass painting classes are currently being taught as private lessons. Contact me for more information.

Painting on Glass Tip - Silver Stain

I may have shown this photo before but it is relevant today also.

When painting on glass, silver stain can be a wonderful and also trying thing to use. This picture shows a piece I replaced for a window at St. Dominic Church in Clinton. At some point in time, the original piece broke out and an ordinary piece of window glass replaced it.

To duplicate it the best way possible, I made a screen that duplicated the other three medallions - the edge design only. That screen was used to silk screen glass paint onto the glass to give the black edge the design it needed. Once done, it was fired in the kiln at about 1200 degrees. The dove in the center was hand painted and was requested by the church. There are no photos or documents depicting what was in the original window.

The trick was in the silver stain. To find out what side of the glass the silver stain should go on, I purchased a Blak-Ray and Mineralight Mini UV Lamp. By putting the black light against the glass, I am able to tell which side should be painted with silver stain, and which side I should paint my tracing colors on.

This panel actually went through the following firings:
1) A light matt of bistre brown
2) Silk screened edge along with hand painted dove
3) Darker brown matt manipulated with a dry brush around the dove
4) Amber silver stain around the dove
5) Darker amber silver stain in the corners of the piece

By mixing my tracing and matt with zinc it helped to keep the piece looking similar to the older pieces in the window. The trick was to make it look like it matched, not make it look brand new. The church was very pleased with the outcome.

Pat Deere

North Country Studio Workshops

http://northcountrystudioworkshops.org/viewvideo.php

I ran across a brochure on the North Country Studio Workshops in Bennington, Vermont. I had the opportunity to take a class with Peter McGrain, glass artist and painter after my studio fire about 8 years ago. What a wonderful opportunity it was. Not only was I among a large group of motivated and talented glass artists, but the campus was full of artists of all kinds ... ranging from the tin can artist, to the bent wood furniture builder, to fiber artists, and more. Click on the link above for more information. It was one of the best art experiences I have had so far. It may be something you will want to consider in the future. Check out the web site, the video, the faculty, and their art work. Let me know if you have had great experiences here or at other similar workshops.

Pat Deere

Customer Question - Painting and Frit

Dear Pat,

Thank you for your recent email. I do check your site periodically. I'd like to learn how to do something but I'm not sure what's it's called exactly nor what is needed both material-wise and experience-wise. So my plea to you is for your help and/or direction.

I'd purchase a set of Swallowtail Butterfly Wings. They were made in Canada by the DeBrady Glass Studios... The package said: "These have been fuse-printed by kiln firing finely ground glass onto clear glass, then refiring with a metallic coating to produce an iridized finish." ...

Thank you, Chris B.

Chris,

I did find this glass company on the internet at http://www.debrady.com/. It looks like they wholesale glass items like this to retail outlets. I can't tell you exactly how they have done this but the technique I would use when trying to make something of this type would be traditional glass paints and glass frit. Traditional glass paints and frit require the use of a kiln to permanently fire it into the glass. When painting I like to mix my paint with water or more often with clove oil. The clove oil allows the paint to work smoothly when painting lines like the ones shown in the butterfly wings. A book I like to reference when painting is one by Albinus Elskus, The Art Of Painting On Glass.

The Fused Glass Handbook by Gil Reynolds is one I like to reference when doing kilnwork also. Glass frit comes in many sizes. Anywhere from sand-like pieces to larger ones like the pieces you make when chipping glass with a pair of glass breakers.

CLASS NOTES: Glass painting and fusing are classes available at my studio. For those interested, it is currently taught in a weekly format in 2 hour sessions. For those interested in glass painting, but who may live a distance from my Tecumseh studio, a longer 1/2 day or day long workshop will be considered in the future. Just let me know if you are interested and a workshop can be made available on the week-end.

Any time you have a question, I will answer it to the best of my ability. If you would like to learn the techniques through a class, I would suggest that it is a good thing. If you just need advice and want to learn it at home, I don’t mind answering questions for you. Hope this helps!

Pat Deere