I love coloured
lights and I don’t care how I get my kicks – Christmas trees, fairy lights and
even sweet wrappers fascinate me.
So it’s no
surprise to me that I am equally captivated by stained glass. I’m particularly
fond of the stained glass panels in old houses but the costs of real stained
glass are astronomical and the skill required to lead real glass takes years to
master. So after some dogged research, I came upon an alternative. Vitrail
Glass Paints and a silicone material called liquid lead.
Here briefly, is how I did it.
You don’t need
any fancy design tool to create a design - I used Microsoft paint. I made this
template shape based upon the old ‘compass and circle’ pattern you used to do
as school as a kid. I wanted accuracy and so being a circle, I only needed to
do ¼ of it and simply flip horizontally then vertically to get the circle
design.
I replicated 3 times to get a repeating pattern and scaled to fit my
design, sellotaped it to the back of the Perspex and then outlined the pattern with liquid Lead. This stuff sticks
to anything - including table cloths, shirts, plates, window sills, doors and
babies. The only things that can get it off are scouring pads and teeth – so be
warned.
Once the outline
was cured it was just a case of painting the colours. I thinned my paints out
with white spirit to make the paints more transparent and a pipette for
measuring out ratios. This glass paint will dry to glass so you can bet you
sweet mother it will dry on tabletops, window ledges, sinks, taps kettles,
kitchen tiles...the list is endless. Blink your eye and a yellow spill on the
window sill is now a permanent dried up puddle of cat wee.
The technique I
used was flood filling.I needed to do
at least 2 coats on each stained glass because each layer dried out totally
leaving just a thin veneer of colour. Personal taste I guess but I wanted rich
colours.
The Drying time is
approx 12 hours between fills and I would advocate only doing one colour at a
time just in case you get spillages and leaks. Also, and this is imperative,
make sure your glass is on a level floor else the paint will pool on one
side.
The results I
think are pretty awesome. It turned out far better than I was expecting. I love
the way the rainbow colours dapple across the wall when the sun comes through
and at night, the warm glow welcomes me home. I’m keen to continue the theme
and I’ve got my eyes on the conservatory now.....
