More stained glass

Following finding Anne Black’s window in the Old Kirk, I thought I might have a go at making a poor man’s version of a stained glass panel to hang in my window.

It is inspired by the window behind the altar at St James’ Church in Cupar which I attend.  I took a photo of the original window and simplified it a lot – the original has thousands of tiny panes which I couldn’t conceivably reproduce.  I came up with this as a coloured sketch.

I printed it onto thin card, and then realized that even with the simplified version there were too many panes, so I reduced it more.  Using a very sharp craft knife I cut the pieces out of the card to make a grid with just the lines of the “lead”.

Traditionally, you use tissue paper for the “glass” in this kind of project – I thought coloured acetate might be better, so I cut pieces of this (scissors proved to be easier than a knife).  Originally I had been going to cut the panes exactly to shape, but this proved quite difficult, so I decided just to go for a more abstract effect.

I then glued the acetate on to a piece of clear perspex (left over from the first abortive attempt at framing the Anne Black window) and glued the grid over that.  I fitted the whole thing into a frame with a further piece of perspex at the front.

I think it looks quite nice, although as with most projects of this sort I learned a lot as I went along and will do it differently the next time I try (I will use black card and make the lines thicker for a start off).