Category Archives: Design

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Exactly Who is the Design For? Or : “The Tale of a Terrible Mistake We nearly Made”

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For ourselves (our egos)? Or for the client?

OK, so imagine you come up with a wonderful idea for your client, and now you also worked it up into a gorgeous full-sized – maybe even full-colour – design …

And the last thing you (you, a designer, an artist, a maker, a glass painter, a student – or however you see yourself) will want to do with this wonderful design is … muck it up and kick the !>@?! out of it, right?

Yes, right. But also wrong. Because of course it all depends.

Goodness me, yes, it’s hard to “wreck” a design. But sometimes that’s what you just must do to show you understand what’s needed.

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Stained Glass Case Study: The Literary Agent’s “Wow!” (Part 1)

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A case study about stained glass design

Just in from a loyal newsletter follower, Dorothy Collard, who writes:

There’s so much I want to ask you, but I’ll start with the Literary Agent’s front door. – Just how did you do it?

How? There are several answers here. And one answer – as some of you will remember – is that I got stubborn and refused to put up with bad smells in the studio.

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Painting on Glass Vs. Painting on Paper

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They are not the same

James Hogan – a designer and glass painter who worked on many windows in Liverpool Cathedral – made this observation:

Stained glass painting has no relation whatsoever to picture painting.

It is an art of its own, dealing with the transmission of light through coloured material, whilst painting is the application of a coloured pigment on a flat surface upon which light is reflected.

“Oi, girls, let’s get Hogan – he’s disqualified us!”

A neat, analytical distinction, this.

As you would expect, it risks disqualifying substantial quantities of painting on glass.

But never mind that for now. I am sure that the ladies on my left will set dear Hogan straight.

And also never mind Hogan’s assumption that stained glass painting is an art. Ah, “art” is such a slippery word – especially in these post-modern times of ours.

Instead, join me on a journey to the Dark Side.

This way, please.