Quirkery!

 Recently completed repairs and restoration work on 5 beautiful porch panels made (possibly!) in the 60's or 70's. The quirkiness of these panels really endeared me. The centres had some unusual handmade glasses with painted and etched elements. The diamonds were an assortment of roundels, ends of bottles, painted fragments, coloured glasses and globs. One of the great things about stained glass is that it can be recycled in this creative way and someone had clearly had fun using up their odds and ends!

Original leadwork.

I thought I had found a makers mark until I found out that F M F stood for Food Marketing Federation!

Corfe Castle?

Sergie Tkachanko

Back around 2004 Sergie Tkachenko came to work at The Stained Glass Shop in London. He came from the Ukraine and was a skilled painter, some of the works he completed while at the shop are shown below. We were always amazed at how he produced such beautiful work with paint brushes that appeared to have only one hair on them! Around 2006 Sergie went to work for the internationally famous Birmingham company of John Hardman Trading Co as a painter and is featured in their (last?) catalogue before they sadly closed in 2008. Sergie returned to the Ukraine with his family including 'Little Sergie' and Valentina around 2012. Sending you very best wishes and hoping that you and your family are safe and well.

Sergei painting - shown bottom left

Sergei's son.

Beautiful panels on the Charlton Slopes

 I am taking a break for a couple of months but will be updating my blog with jobs recently completed. These lovely, Edwardian panels are on a street where they are lucky to have kept many of the original panels. A simple but classic design (maybe an Egyptian influence?) with multiple textures that really sparkle in the sunshine. 

The panels above have cracks and are need of the old paint and dirt removing...  

In the studio they are cleaned, cracks replaced, new border leads and re-cement / polish up

Below the panels are refitted with toughened glass at the front to protect them.

Photo Courtesy of Maria Quinn. Thank you Maria!

 Although the same design runs along the street the stained glass was often personalised by picking out the features in different colours, textures or by having slightly different birds.

More Sunshine - with sparkling sea in Hastings!

 A lovely Victorian door in Hastings needed a bit of brightening up to match the beautiful clifftop location...

Inside the porch is an original Victorian door with amber slips and brilliant cut starbursts in the corners...

Pasting up glasses - a mix of textured blues and ambers to check they will blend with internal porch door...

A mix of sea themed glasses for the borders; Oceanic, Ripple, Sparkle, Glistre, Krackle, Muranese etc.

Leading up, ready to solder.

Photo courtesy of Rupert Moy - thank you Rupert!

Door panel installed!

Sunshine in the Morning!

This cheerful sunrise was based on an existing Art Deco design that the customer saw and liked. We adapted it for their front door semi-circular panel and used bright colours to get that sunshine feel and blend with the beautiful door colour. A lot of texture was used so that the glass ripples and sparkles at different times of the day....

Panel before installation.

Photos courtesy of Inna Dmitrijeva. Thank you Inna!

Giving Old Glass a New Lease of Life...

 It's brilliant when you get the opportunity to show off the skill of the original sheet glass designers in a new creation. This panel was based on some previous designs of mine (shown below) and adapted by the customer to fit their shaped door panels and fanlight.

Drawing inspiration from the above the customer produced a beautiful design and selected a palette of glasses (both old and new) from which the shifts in texture were built up and decorative features added, pasting up the glasses to see how they caught the light and worked next to each other.

Here are a few detail shots of the finished panels.... 

And here the finished product...

New life for an old door too!