Beautiful Stained Glass and Mixed Media Art Work
The commission work is coming in thick and fast at presents, which is fantastic and here are my latest drawings for a panel in a front door. The couple like my landscape pieces, love the sea and boats, BUT the window is 18 x37 cm so I am working to quite a small scale, so I have gone for simple suggestions of land and boats and really simplified the waves of the sea. I wonder which one they will choose?
The alter box restoration I have been working on has been returned to its owner today. She was delighted with it and gave me a big hug (I get that a lot when I drop something off!) It is much improved on its original dreadful state!
I have also finished my piece based on Lynnwoodcrafts work and here it is:
I have been hoping to get on with my collaboration with Lynwoodcrafts this week, but other things, like going camping, kept getting in the 
way.
Firstly I had to make more brooches, 139 to be exact as everywhere is selling out fast and I have been busy with my Florence rooftops panel commission, which I need to finish in time for the couple’s wedding, it is starting to shape up now and I have cemented it today. I still have to clean it up and add some windows to the cathedral, but I will finish it tomorrow. The numbering is so I can work out where each piece of the jigsaw goes easily and will wash off.
Anyway, I have finally chosen and cut the glass for my version of a Lynwoodcrafts brooch (see below post for details) and the white tree shapes is PVA glue drying. It is the resist for the etching creme I will add tomorrow to etch the silhouettes of trees into the glass. After that I will lead and finish it with paterna to darken the solder joins and buff with stove black.
Sue (Lynwood herself) is camping for the weekend, but we will reveal our finished items at the same time Sunday or Monday. Hers is looking fabulous! I do think she is a very talented super camping mum!
We have just returned from a glorious camping trip to Maker Heights campsite, near Cawsands in Cornwall. It was a fabulous campsite, just a toilet block and a field where campfires were permitted, perfect! The kids had a wonderful time playing in the trees and walking down to the beach on the coast path and us adults played with fire and had a relaxing time. The site is an area of outstanding natural beauty and was used as various military garrassons until recently, due to its unparalelled view of the coastline and Devonport ship yard across the river in Plymouth. They have various enterprises underway on the site, artist studios, local businesses and annual music festivals; an interesting place well worth a visit.
The coastline there was amazing and we had some great days on the beach in Cawsands. I intend to use this coastline as inspiration for some new pieces (I have lots of ideas already), unfortunately I dont have the time right now as I have 3 commissions on the go and lots of shops to restock………watch this space for some future work coming out of this lovely trip!
I have just started a project with another artist on Folksy, the wonderful Sue from Lynwoodcrafts . We have chosen an item from each others shop and are designing our own interpretation of it.
Sue makes wonderful miniature embroidered and woven scenes and landscapes, mostly in the form of brooches and pendants and I adore her work, so I hope I can do it justice! It will be very interesting to see how the soft tactile textures of Sue’s work contrast with the hard glass and metal textures of mine. But a love of the coast and landscape and nature runs through both our work so we do have lots of common ground. Here are the pieces we have chosen from each others shops
I have got as far a working cartoon so far, I cannot start making it till I have been to my glass merchant on Monday as I need more glass!
I intend to use a wonderful dark streaky purple cathederal glass for the dark purple blue sections and another great streaky orange and yellow streaky for the sunset section. I will acid etch the tree silhouettes onto the glass
I have recently been commissioned to create a panel as a very special wedding present for a couple getting married in September. They both love Italy and are honeymooning there, so the theme is Italian, specifically Tuscany. I adore Italy and as soon as she said Tuscany I had images of Florentine roof tops in my head! She was excited by this idea too and so I have whittled my drawing down to 2 depictions of the city………..I wonder which one she will choose?
A couple of posts back I shared some photos of an alter box I had picked up to repair. Well today I finally got a full day in my workshop to tackle this old beauty. It has been rattling its doors at me every time I walk past it, so it was good to finally get on with it!
I have never restored something in such a bad state; very little of the glass was broken, but the lead was bowed and buckling and all the glass had just popped out.
Firstly, I had to remove the panels from the wooden doors, which was quite a task in itself as the wood is very old and I did not want to damage it. Eventually I prized them out and the full extent of the damage was apparent. I had already realised that the reason the lead was so distorted was because it was very thin lead holding in
very heavy, thick cut glass central diamond bevels, more of that later.
Usually I would have taken a rubbing of the existing leading to use as a pattern for remaking it, but the lead was too badly distorted to do this so I moved straight onto taking the old lead apart. When taking apart an old lead panel it is important to damp down the lead and wear protective gloves and mask, lead starts to deteriorate after around 93 years and this means that is starts breaking down into powder, which is when it is at its most dangerous as it is easily inhaled. So first of all I gave both the panels a good
spray with water and put the old lead aside to be recycled.
Next I started work on the new pattern. Only 3 pieces of clear glass were missing, so this was easy to match; but measuring out and drawing the new pattern too
k a while, especially as I decided to use various thicknesses of lead to hold the heavy glass in place more securely.
I then built up the lead and glass and soldered the finished pieces together to secure.
I still need to cement and paterna the piece, but I think you will agree that an afternoon’s work can make a huge difference! 
Finally finished my Dairy
Crest commission to highlight the waste produced from plastic milk containers, which is being used to promote their new Jugit system which creates 75% less waste than conventional milk cartons.
There will be better photos when it is in position in Morrisions Taunton, but at 2.5m long it takes up most of our garden! Which is
currently a building site, so excuse the rubble behind it! Anyway, it is being picked up next week to graze in its new supermarket pasture, but until the big launch here are some sneaky peak shots of my plastic cow!
It is entirely made from milk cartons, from the horns to the tail! Held together with wire, glue and painted with spray paint and some old enamel paint from the garage. I hope it stays up, helps deliver the message and makes people smile!
I am a stained glass artist working in Exeter and a busy mum of 2; trying to carve a path through the tide of washing and children's toys that stands between me and making beautiful things.
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