Home - A Pain In The Glass

Part of

Learning the traditional craft of leaded lights.

In January 2009 I enrolled in an adult education class to learn how to make leaded light windows and suncatchers. These classes are based in the Sevenoaks Adult Education Centre. The result of my two terms are shown in the first nine images below.

Silver Birch - this is my first attempt at leaded light.

When I started my lessons I was asked to design a small 'cartoon' or sketch. This would be used to make my piece. This is what I came up with, thinking the white bark would look great with a back light. Most of the glass came from the scrap boxes in the class.

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Sunflower - my second piece replacing my front door glass.

My front door always lacked colour and I wanted to change that. I used a photograph taken in France last year of a field of sunflowers to get my design. Here I used the top half of just one of hundreds in the picture. This is in fact four windows in one.

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Daisy - My third piece of leaded light.

This daisy was one of thousands in a border at Great Dixter during a college visit in May 2006. Picking the right one to make was the 'fun' part. My challenge in this piece was the large areas of green glass where I wanted less joins to balance the picture.

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Rose Bud - My fourth piece.

This rose is another design inspired by that fantastic garden at Great Dixter. This one was found in the Tropical Garden back in June 2007. It now takes pride of place in my garden shelter.

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