Looking for that beautiful wobble..!

Over the years your eyes get very attuned to the properties of glass and one of the joys is spotting an original handmade pane of glass, perhaps the only one left in a much repaired set, trees and buildings distort as you look through then leap back into focus in the next pane of float glass! You'll spot much of this glass in Regency and Georgian fanlights with their strong elegant outlines (although float glass was not launched until 1959 so many later examples exist too). Below are a couple of illustrations...

 Wobbling trees! A 'Captains House', Blackheath.

 



   This job had an extra element as the neighbours had a small remnant of original lead fascia molding left. Getting a copy made can be very expensive so we used a precast lead roundel, checking different sizes.

 

Regency and Georgian leadwork was frequently painted white.

 

 

 A 'batwing' design with handmade clear and yellow tints. 

 

 

You can see more beautiful designs from this period on my website here. You can find out more about the amazing variety of restoration glasses here;  The London Crown Glass Company and about Georgian Buildings in general here; The Georgian Group.

 

Fantastic fanlights!

Most fanlights are small, often just over the width of the door, the more wealthy had side fanlights either 1 or 2, narrower than the central one. A very unusual arrangement is the double fanlight where there are 2 rows of large fans. Often where a porch overhang exists light was maximised by leaving the fanlight either just as plain glass or with a painted number, usually white. It is sometimes tempting to fill out every aperture with colourful glass but if you have an old house with a clear glass fanlight give it a good clean, if you cast your eye over it and the shapes outside 'wobble and distort', then the chances are you may well have the original handmade glass which has it's own special beauty.

A double fan - a large expanse of glass!

  Design adapted from an original Victorian design.

It's your home!

Making your home your own can take time. Changing the look of something that has been that way for a long time can seem a large step. When whole streets and large estates were laid out in the Victorian and Edwardian era door apertures were often shaped and designed to take stained glass, but sometimes the money ran out for this luxury and so in place was put a highly textured glass and it was up to the customer to choose to keep this or change it. Here's an example of a job where the customer decided to take that step some 100 years or so later (for the house not the customer)!

Before...with original Muranese glass in the small lights and fanlight

 After, keeping some of the original glass but building in 2 Arts and Crafts style panels 

  Using some 'old stock' Muranese in the new panels to link in with the ones above and using the subtle earthy tones of handmade glass.

 

'Art is the Flower - Life is the Green Leaf'

'You must offer the flowers of the art that is in you' so said Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The problem is that his unique designs with their elegance, balance and sheer style continue to grow in popularity and, some 100 years later, are some of the most influential ideas in design work today. Mackintosh created many stained glass panels and these designs have been very popular but the designs have often needed adapting for new shapes; long fanlights or thin door panels.

 

Iris design using Rennie Mack features.

 

A set of 3 internal windows.

 

A bit of a challenge! A hallway with one window on the far right with internal light from a kitchen. One window half lit and half with brick wall behind and one window full brick wall behind. To get the panels to work across all 3, I used a background glass which is sometimes opaque and sometimes translucent, using the thicker bits for the brick wall areas. In the borders I used an iridescent glass that light can pass through but is still attractive, reflecting back it's pearly colours when light is blocked. For the features where light was blocked I used silvered glass or very pale colours.   

 

Designs for bathroom fanlight showing different border arrangements.

 

Finished design.

Toilet Glass!

I'm often told by customers that some glass reminds them of glass they are familiar with in toilets. These machine made glasses are often heavily obscured with deep cut patterns and in a large sheet are not that interesting... but cut up and used sparingly they can become really lively creating the most amazing shifts in texture as different bits light up during different times of the day. Here is one such job...

 

A fanlight panel for a flat in Waterloo. 

Afternoon sunlight picks up the textured glasses.

Checking the colours away from the wall of trees!

Bevelled glass adds extra sparkle!  

 Toilet glasses are go! Featuring Muranese, Festival, Glistre, Cross Reed, Sparkle and Japanese. 

 Not forgetting Large Cross Reed bottom left!

 

 

In situ.

 

 

 

 

Interesting toilet glass at Well Hall Tudor Barn

now where's my chisel!

 

Getting ready for Open Studios 5 - 7th December

Fused stars by Sue King Glass studio 202, brilliant cut stars by Apollo Stained Glass.

 

 

 

Hot off the press; new product line...

Big and Bold and Confident...

A beautiful Edwardian street in Lee where many houses still have their original glass. Imagine walking down this street in the twilight with the gas lights flickering behind the glass or perhaps the more adventurous having the modern 'electric' lighting. The Victorian factory style stained glass workshops like Goddard and Gibbs were still in full swing at this time and whole streets and estates were planned with stained glass, often with small differences between neighbours to add that individual touch.

A full rebuild and clean up before reinstallation.

 

 A full rebuild (and later repair!) note the unusual asymmetry of the design. 

A new copy for the neighbours of one of the street designs. Adaptations included adding roundels and globs and keeping some of the quirky asymmetry!