I have been keen to use glass paints more in my stained glass artworks, so I decided to make some wall art that celebrated the beauty of opaque stained glass but had more detailed pictures on the front.

I decided dogs would be fun to paint so got started with the Border Collie stained glass panel. First I cut the stained glass and rounded the corners as I was going to use lead edging to frame the piece. I marked a border where the lead would cover so I knew where the design would be, as I wanted the dog to look like it was peering out from the bottom half of the design. This would focus attention on the dog’s head but also would allow a good amount of the glass to show behind. The painting went better than I had anticipated and the dog seemed to have a lively personality, much like a real Border Collie!

Once the design had been heated to set the glass paints, I made the lead surround and added little loops to hang the panel. I added thin but strong wire to the top which would take the weight of the panel but not detract from the design.

Encouraged by my first success, I proceeded to paint a Pug design on a pretty aqua streaky glass. I thought the background made a good contrast with the black and brown of the pug’s colouring. This was followed by a Rough Collie in profile (some of us remember Lassie from the TV series back in the day… showing my age here ;)). I used a good mix of colours here and got a good textured effect on the fur. This one was set against a darker blue stained glass as the dog’s colours were lighter browns, white and tan.

All of these unique, hand-painted stained glass panels took a long time to complete but I did enjoy using the glass paints. I also painted a ‘pop art’ style seagull on a strong, orange glass and a budgerigar (not shown here) on a smaller glass plaque.

Unfortunately I haven’t got back to glass painting for some time as I have been busy with other projects but if you’d like to commission something just let me know.