An interesting project came through our studio recently; a lovely couple were referred to us who wanted two heraldic shields (as gifts for their children) to match one that was made for them 50 years ago in Switzerland. It’s an […]

We had a hectic run up to the end of the summer – practically non-stop to get five windows finished and everything ready and organized for two days installing them. Thankfully all went to plan; a 30ft ladder to access the flat roof, hauling up scaffolding to build over the skylight and get up to the […]

Laura and I really enjoyed following the Olympics, and were in awe of the skills and abilities on show and appreciate the thousands of hours of practice and hard work that goes into honing those. Laura’s Grandfather Bert Bellew won a silver medal for Canada at the 1930 Empire Games as a rower in the coxless […]

  We had a very special VIP visit us a few days ago –  97 year old Pat who is the benefactor of our St Peter window for St Joseph’s church in Langley. Pat and his daughters Suzanne and Annette were delighted to have the opportunity to view St Peter on the easel, and we […]

    We’re just back from our Okanagan installation, it went went really well. It’s always slightly nerve wracking to be working from a template that we haven’t made ourselves, but it fit perfectly. Heartwood Homes of Vernon were great to work with and they are building a beautiful house on the lake for the client, […]

The sun is out, there’s work to be done, and it’s times like these that we really love being in the studio. All the prep is done for the installation of our landscape window near Lake Okanagan in a couple of weeks, really looking forward to meeting the builders and the client, and to the […]

We managed to dodge the April showers and get a dry day last week to install our St Jude window. As always, John and Jim did an awesome job despite the tricky access, but this time they were carefully supervised by Coda (Jim’s daughter’s dog)! St Jude is looking very handsome, if a bit lonely up there. […]

It seems appropriate in March to post a photo of a hare painted on glass!  We have just finished this lovely little project for a long standing client. She is a William Morris fan and wanted us to create three door panes inspired by his hare design and chrysanthemum wallpaper design. For those who may not […]

As a painter, be it in whatever medium, when you develop a certain style you can be pigeon-holed as producing that and very little else. The truth is polar opposite, as you’ve spent years, decades even, studying, practising and sometimes failing before you find that elusive style. We recently took this little beauty out of storage, […]

John has just finished leading our residential window for the Okanagan, named “Bonsai Rock” by the client.  It’s over 5 feet in diameter and made in three sections so we have only been able to lay it on the light table to view, we won’t see it as fully envisaged with daylight until it’s installed. I’m so looking forward […]

Waiting for the spring….well, at least better weather. Generally speaking, we are pretty lucky (weather wise) here in Vancouver but to install our patiently waiting St Jude we need to reach an awkward window space that is accessible only by going over a steep sloping roof to a flat roof and then building a platform […]

We have a lot of painting on the go in the studio for our residential window “Bonsai Rock” (a local landmark named by our client for the small but perfectly formed trees that grow on top) . Bigger projects require the painting to be divided into manageable sections on multiple easels so that we can work on […]

New Year progress in the studio! Tracing “Bonsai Rock” Painting on the easel

  John is making considerable progress painting our St Jude window. The pieces are held with bees wax to the tempered glass easel during the painting process to ensure that all of the highlights and tones follow through correctly. We use various hogs hair brushes, sticks and needles to achieve the desired effect and to […]

I have finished the full size cartoon for our residential project in the Okanagan, which I drafted by hand using Indian ink and various types of soft pencil, determining the positioning of the leads and all the details and tonal values to be painted. I use a grid system to loosely draft all the elements from my […]

                                    John is busy getting the first of our 12 Apostles windows underway for St Joseph’s Langley. We’re starting with St Jude; each piece of glass has been cut by hand and the first painting stage of tracing […]

  I really enjoyed creating the water colour design for this near 5 ft diameter window for a new home being built in the Okanagan. Our client wanted to depict a local landmark that he has named “Bonzai Rock”, and I had fun introducing some strong flow of line and colour to the foreground and sky. I’ll […]

Mosaic and Glass Arts International Exhibition, CEPA Gallery , Buffalo, NY Outside the CEPA Gallery, Buffalo, NY We are recently back from the Stained Glass Association of America’s (in collaboration with the Society of American Mosaic Artists) conference “Forging New Paths” held in their home town of Buffalo NY for their 120th anniversary.  This was our first year attending but […]

We have just installed our St Phocas window for St Mary’s Kerrisdale. It is the last clerestory window, the 22nd that we have done for this church since 2007. We will miss woking on a couple of these little windows each year, but I’m pretty sure that John won’t miss accessing the cedar shingle roof for the […]

In my last post I had just finished the design for our 22nd (and last) clerestory window for St Mary’s Kerrisdale. Since then we have been pretty busy progressing the project; the full size hand drawn cartoon was completed, then the structural drawing or cutline was created from that and then the glass selected and cut. […]