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Designing for Stained Glass - Part One

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I've been having fun designing my own stained glass projects. One of the first things I've learned as a beginner at this is that there's a lot to think about when designing. In this first part, I'm going to talk about design ideas - where to look for them and some things I've learned about translating them into a glass panel design. I'll also show you one piece I designed and say a bit about how it was created.

I remember reading that the Prairie School architects, one being Frank Lloyd Wright, spent a lot of time studying natural forms and translated that study into their work. Many of Wright's windows have plant names: hollyhock, sumac, tree of life. The natural and built environments are great places to look for design inspirations. My love of old buildings and architecture has inspired a number of design ideas.

Last summer I was called for jury duty - for the first time in my life - so I had to go to our district federal court building. This building was built in 1930, originally as a post office, and is on the National Register of Historic Places. It was great! The motifs and the quality of workmanship were wonderful! (It was hard to pay respectful attention during our interviews when all I wanted to do was look around the courtroom at the decorations!) One of the motifs is called a palmette, which according to ArtLex dictionary is "an ornamental motif based on the palm leaf, a radiating cluster of petals. It is often seen in ancient Egypitan and classical Greek ornament." Once you recognize it, you will see it was very popular in Victorian and early 20th century buildings - as well as in textiles and other items. That motif is the basis for this design.

The first thing I did was experiment with bevels to come up with the border design. Once I was happy with the border, it determined the dimensions of the interior design section, in this case, 8 x 14 inches, then I roughly outlined the palmette portion within that. A couple of places in the design lent themselves to circles, so I incorporated two 50mm jewels. That left the background. For it, I consulted my reference books. I found a picture of an 1880 Greek Revival window that had an interesting background that would work with my design, so I adapted that for my project. Now the design was complete. It was laid out with computer design software and printed out on paper, then transferred to the glass pattern paper. I'll say more about this process in a subsequent article.

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