Create Your Own Stained-Glass Painting

Stained glass can be made in a variety of ways. For more information, please read Stained Glass. For another stained-glass craft project, please see Melted-Crayon Stained-Glass Masterpiece. Below, you will find a second stained-glass project. Be sure to ask an adult for help with this project.

Materials Needed:

Glass Picture Frame, Any Shape and Size
Surface Conditioner
Transparent Glass Paint in Several Colors
Paintbrush
Paper and Pencil or a Printed Picture
Clear Tape
Plastic Container and Lid


Gather your materials. Lay newspaper over your work space.

Remove the glass from the picture frame. Clean and dry the glass. Make sure you have permission to paint on the picture frame! Paint the surface conditioner over the area you’re going to paint. You can find a surface conditioner in any craft store in the same place you find glass paint. Try Delta PermEnamel. Let the surface dry completely. This may take up to 24 hours.

Choose the picture you want to paint on your glass. You can either use a picture from a magazine, print something from the internet, or draw your own on a piece of paper. Tape the picture to the underside of the glass so the image shows through. Now you can use it as a guideline when you paint your glass. Feel free to skip this step and just paint your picture straight on to the glass.

Fill your plastic container with water for washing your brush between colors. Use the lid as a palette but when you squeeze paint from your bottles, remember that glass paint dries quickly. You can also buy glass paint in small pots that can be closed when you’re not using them.

Paint your picture onto the glass. If you want light to shine through the picture, paint in thin layers. You can also paint your image thickly but light will not show through the way it does through a stained-glass window.

When you are happy with your stained-glass, read the directions on your glass paint package. You may need to place your glass in the oven so the paint won’t peel off. If this is the case, make sure an adult helps you. Don’t forget to remove your drawing or printed image from the back before heating your plate in the oven.

Glue the glass back into the picture frame. Regular white glue will not hold. Try Tacky Glue instead. You will not need the back of the picture frame anymore. Now you can place your stained glass in the window and the light will shin through.

You can paint anything that is made of glass (as long as your parent says it’s okay). Below is a picture of two wine glasses I painted for my mom for Christmas one year.

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Melted-Crayon Stained-Glass Masterpiece

You can make your own stained-glass masterpieces! Following is the first of two stained-glass projects. Check back tomorrow for the second.

Materials Needed:

Crayons in Many Colors
Heavy Black Paper
Wax Paper
Elmer’s Glue
Crayon Sharpener
Hole Punch
Ribbon
Scissors
Thin Dishtowel
Iron


Gather your materials and ask a grown-up to help you with your project.

Start by cutting designs out of your black construction paper. You can cut out a shape, like a cat or a leaf, or just make patterns. You will use the outline of the shape or pattern for your stained glass. Make sure to leave enough black paper for a line of glue.

When you are happy with your outline, take a second piece of black paper, the same size as the first, and trace your shape or pattern onto the second piece. Then cut out the shapes. You will be left with two matching outlines.

Note: If you have a grown-up to help you, you can use an exacto-knife to cut the pieces out of your black paper. If not, try folding the paper to cut your shapes out of the middle. This will keep the paper in one piece.

Next, take a sheet of wax paper and glue it to the back of one of the pieces of black paper so that it shows through the openings. Trim the wax paper until it is the same shape and size as the black paper. Take a second sheet of wax paper and glue it to your other piece of black paper. Make sure that when you place the wax paper sides together the black outlines match up.

Choose which colors you’d like for your stained glass and take the wrappers off those colored crayons. Place one of your pages wax paper side up and use your crayon shavings to shave bits of crayons onto it. These colors with show through the black lines and form your stained-glass. Make sure to completely cover the wax paper with crayon shavings or there will be white spaces in your stained-glass.

When your stained-glass is exactly the way you want it, put a line of glue along the outer edge of your page and attach your second sheet. Make sure to line up the patterns you cut out of your paper. The stained glass will look the same on both sides.

Cover your stained-glass with a thin dishtowel. Ask your grown-up helper to iron over the dishtowel. This will melt the crayon shavings, blending the colors and keeping them in place.

Punch a hole near the top of your stained-glass masterpiece and thread a piece of ribbon through the hole. Make the ribbon into a loop and tie a bow at the top. Use this to hang your stained-glass in a window so the light will shine through it.

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Stained Glass

Glass is made by melting silica, which is found in sand, and small amounts of other chemicals. When the silica melts it becomes a thick liquid, close to the texture of molasses. When the glass is in the hot, liquid form, color can be added to create stained glass before flattening it and letting it harden as it cools.

There are many ways to make stained-glass, however, and each creates a different effect.

One way that glass makers create stained glass is by attaching a blob of colored glass to a tube and then blowing until the glass takes the shape of a cylinder, like a bottle. Then the glass cylinder is cut open and flattened to form a sheet of stained glass.

Another way is to place the ball of hot, colored glass into a spinner to flatten it. This causes the sheet of glass to have rings in it. It will never be completely flat but the unevenness lets the light flow through differently than if the glass were flat.

The hot glass, once colored, can also be laid out and rolled flat. This creates texture in the glass which makes it difficult to see through. The glass in the picture to the left was made by rolling the glass until it was flat.

To make a stained-glass window, an artist first designs the picture he wants to create, then uses small pieces of colored glass to make pictures or designs. He cuts the glass to the right size and shape and then uses special glass to paint the details of faces or animals. The artist then solders the pieces of glass together by using a tool to heat and melt strips of metal to hold the glass together.

An artist can also make an entire stained-glass window by painting on clear glass with special paint.

Stained glass is used mostly in the windows of churches and cathedrals so many of the windows show religious scenes. The window shown here, from Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Florence, Italy, depicts the twelve apostles. If you have never been inside a church or cathedral, the light shines through the stained-glass windows and bathes the walls in color. As you can see, the inside of the building remains somewhat dark so lamps are sometimes used even during the day.

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Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett

Chasing Vermeer, by Blue Balliett, is an exciting mystery about the quest of two sixth graders, Petra and Calder, to save a work of art from a thief. Through a series of coincidences too related to be accidental, the two collect clues and learn about Vermeer’s art along the way. Even Brett Helquist’s chapter illustrations contain a mystery. This book never fails to involve the audience. It even includes a secret coded language that the reader must use to understand parts of the book.

You don’t need to know anything about the seventeenth-century Dutch painter, Vermeer to understand and enjoy this thrilling story. Blue Balliett tells you all you need to know in this novel meant for readers 9 years and older. If you’d like to learn anyway, please read yesterday’s article, Artist Profile: Johannes Vermeer.

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Artist Profile: Johannes Vermeer

Johannes Vermeer was a Dutch painter, born in Delft in 1632. He began his career in the arts when his father died and Vermeer inherited the family art dealing business. He continued to work as an art dealer even after he had become a respected painter because he needed the money.

Vermeer married a Catholic woman named Catharina Bolnes, even though he was a Protestant, and went to live with her and her mother in the “Papist corner.” Catholics in Delft lived in a separate neighborhood than the Protestants and the members of the two religions did not usually spend much time together.

Vermeer and his wife had fourteen children but not nearly enough money to support them all. Catharina’s mother gave them some money and let the family live with her but Vermeer still had to borrow money to feed his children.

In 1653, Vermeer joined the painters’ trade association, the Guild of Saint Luke. This allowed him to be taken seriously as an artist.

Later, Pieter van Ruijven, one of the richest men in town, became Vermeer’s patron. As patrons do, Ruijven bought many of Vermeer’s paintings and made sure he had canvas, paints, and brushes so he could work. Having a patron meant that Vermeer could use the color blue in his paintings, a very expensive color in the 1600s because it was made out of the semi-precious stone, lapis lazuli. And use blue he did. Look at the headband on this famous painting, Girl with the Pearl Earring.

Today, we have given Vermeer credit for 66 paintings, though experts are only sure that 35 of them were actually painted by Vermeer. Another Dutch painter, Han van Mergeren, wanted to prove that he was a good artist so he painted in the style of Vermeer, making an unknown number of fakes.

Nearly all of Vermeer’s paintings show indoor scenes. One exception is View of Delft, shown below. Most have a single window on the left side of the painting which provides the light. (For example, The Milkmaid, picture to the left.) Vermeer created a smooth but thick painting by applying a thin layer of paint, letting it dry, then adding another thin layer of paint, and continuing until he was happy with the artwork. His subjects ranged from very poor workers to rich nobles.

EDITED TO ADD: Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett, book review

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