Truly nothing makes me angrier than people painting on glass with acrylic or oil paint and calling it “glass painting.” Why? Because you’re one humid day away from that whole thing being destroyed. IT IS NOT ARCHIVAL.
Vitreous glass paint is a type of paint that is made of small glass particles that fuse to the surface of the glass. In 1000+ years, the only things that have changed in this process are that we have electricity for kilns and we no longer use child labor in window construction… both positive changes, I’d say.
I love being a part of this ancient tradition and I love using techniques typically reserved for Jesus to paint cute little animals floating in the sky.
This piece “Beluga Borealis” is part of my solo show opening this Saturday (May 16th) from 7-11pm @coreyhelfordgallery in Los Angeles.
The opening is FREE to the public and wheelchair accessible.
Please email [email protected] for preview info or to adopt a piece!
Go check out @guzzettaglassworks for more examples of my glass work from over the years. I will be posting there more frequently with commissions and client work if you’re interested in the process of glass painting!
I got paid for 4 full window sketches before the clients decided they only wanted 2 stained glass windows. Then I got paid to make 2 full windows that the clients never even saw before deciding they just wanted to stick with natural light!
At the end of the day, I still made about $16k though so I’m not even a little mad about it! 😂
Now the studio has some beautiful samples to show prospective clients who might want their own painted windows and I have some great portfolio builders.
#glass #glassart #glasspainting #stainedglass #artemis
A painted detail of the Gethsemane panel from the previous post. Once again, I wish I could find an image of the full panel but sadly, I cannot. 🙃
#dove #stainedglasspainting
A small diptych I designed for a church out here in Cali while working at Judson Studios. The Gethsemane scene is a well-traveled motif in Ecclesiastical work, but I enjoyed putting my own spin on it and adding a field of California poppies.
Here is a painted detail from the Seattle design in the previous post. I wish I had more images, but this all I could find!
#stainedglass #glasspainting
This is a window I designed for a church in Seattle when I worked at Judson Studios.
The key challenge here is that they wanted figurative windows but the rest of the church was this abstract style, so I chose to use design elements and the color palette of the existing windows and weave the figures in.
They also didn’t want the figures to be fully painted to cut down on cost, so only the sheep, faces, and hands received a matte paint and the clothing was trace only to help them better integrate with the background.
A fun collab with my art wife @coloradoglassworks from 2022 (I think?).
Meggy had the great idea to do a version of the tiny portal paintings I had been doing in glass. I did all the painting and she chose all of the surrounding glass to create these little escapes!
This is a rose window I designed for @cavallinistudios late last year. The challenge here was incorporating salvaged border elements from an old window (the fleur de lis and embellished rubies).
I do all of my digital design work with a mix of Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. Here, I did all of my linework and breakage in illustrator and transferred to Photoshop to color it.
Pieces like this are a lot like coloring in a coloring book. Once all the structure is there, it’s a lot of fun!
This was a little practice piece I made of my bestie when I was doing a glass painting tutorial for an intern at Judson.
Easily one of my best faces, it helps when you have a great model!
This is a series of windows I created for Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church in Maricopa, AZ when I worked for Judson Studios.
It was actually a new church at the time and I designed and painted every single window in the church. Of all the windows, these were my favorite, a series of archangel windows.
The biggest challenge was designing them for such narrow openings in a way that created cohesive movement as a whole. St. michael was definitely my favorite as I loved painting the sword, dragon, and chainmail!
All Reusche kiln-fired paints.
This is project I did for Theodore Ellison Designs.
I worked closely with Ted, even traveling to the Bay to look at glass in person and refine the initial design to bring more clarity.
The blue shield is all flashed glass and the lightning bolts were etched out using hydroflouric acid.
I really love working with Ted and had fun bringing this piece to life for him!
Here’s a little process on the stained glass pieces I’ve been working on for my upcoming solo show ‘OASIS’ @coreyhelfordgallery opening MAY 16th from 7-11pm.
This whole piece is created using vitreous glass paints that are fired in a kiln at between 1050-1215 degrees Fahrenheit. The same techniques have been used for glass painter for over 1000 years and the paint can last just as long. Stained glass is one of the MOST archival art forms because (if fired properly) they do not fade with light, unlike oil and acrylic pigments.
I’m still thinking of a title so let me know if you have any suggestions!
If you’re interested in adopting this piece, please email [email protected] and ask for the preview!
Solder work by @mollysmagickglass
