Posted on October 19, 2021
Stained Glass Art – The Basics
For art amateurs, stained glass is a highly gratifying pastime, and for professional artists, it is an equally vivid expressive medium. Many parts of the craft need to be learned if you want to be effective at it, including how to cut glass, foil heavy textured glass, grind, soldering (flux application and gap filling, burning, etc.), and finishing (application of patina). Lamp photography, zinc frame, and, for the more ambitious and sure-footed stained glass art practitioners, selling your final works are all parts of this distinct craft.
COE96 Etched Dichroic Glass translates into finished products such as boxes, lamps, and other decorative items as well as penetration into other mediums such as photography. Panel lamps, Styrofoam mold lamps (Varden Systems), fiberglass mold lamps, or Odyssey System lamps ("no sticky wax method") are among the lamp-making options. Panel and mold set-ups allow you to create your stained glass lamp designs.
Be patient with the stained glass art rendering process; Don't expect to get it on the first try. Maintain it, and try different ways of cutting the glass and patterning it within the frame. Working with different textures and sizes of glass pieces will allow you to discover a variety of methods to help you understand the finished products. Stained glass art provides a distinctive gilded sense of accomplishment for those who "practice" it.
For centuries, of course, stained glass artists have put the icing on the cake, so to speak, by offering spectacularly stained windows to the greatest structures in history – Europe's cathedrals, palaces, abbeys, and churches. The legacy left by stained glass art is one of a very great craft, virtually synonymous with the discovery of the Holy Grail and the centuries-old fight for supreme artistic expression even during the eras of the Great Repression.