GALLERY
AVD studio works
ARTIST BIO
Andy Daugherty
I have always been fascinated by pure color - gazing at paint chips and sewing thread displays in stores as a child. As a photographer, I tried to capture the intensity of color that I could see, but never could fully reproduce. Finally, I discovered stained glass. Only with transmitted light could the intensity and purity be achieved.
Glass work led to church repairs and commissions that required painting, staining and firing in the medieval tradition. I studied with Richard Millard in the 70's, and recently with Kathy Jordan.
The bunny panel (shown above) was on display at the American Glass Guild 2018 National Convention.
My glass painting skills are still basic, but I am committed to learning from the best.
Technique
There are many books and classes on building stained glass, but few on painting and staining glass.
The techniques I use were developed between 1200 AD and 1400 AD and have not changed since then. They are time honored and labor intensive processes designed to withstand a thousand years of weathering in the old cathedrals.
The color is in the glass when it is made into sheets and cooled at the glass factory. Most stained glass artists buy the sheets of blue, red and so on, and cut their designs from glass already colored. They then assemble the pieces with lead came or copper foil. This is a labor intensive process and can produce beautiful work.
When glass is painted, the color is still inherent in the glass piece itself, but the paint is applied to the glass to modulate the light, creating images with depth, shape and shadow and then baked in a kiln to fuse the paint to the surface. The paint is a mixture of powdered glass, oxides and gum arabic. It is applied and worked with brushes and other tools, dried, scraped away and otherwise modified until the desired image is visible on a light table. Only then is it fired to well over 1000 degrees F to fuse the powdered glass to the surface itself. Once fired, it cannot be removed. Some pieces will require as many as seven paintings and seven firings to achieve the desired look.
Silver nitrate stain is sometimes applied to the back of the glass and fired to produce the yellow and orange tones seen in many church windows. This technique is where the term "stained" glass is taken from, even though most stained glass works contain no stain at all.
The only way actual color is painted onto glass is by using enamels which, while fired, cannot achieve the same permanence of powdered glass paint and silver stain. Many artists avoid enamels out of respect for the tradition, while others use it to great effect on panels that will not be exposed to weather.
Learning to paint and stain glass takes a long time and few teachers of the craft remain alive today.
The techniques are so labor intensive that panels can cost upwards of $1,000 a square foot to produce.