Blog

St Hildegard of Bingen

  We’re looking forward to starting the first painting stage of our 18th window for St. Mary’s, Kerrisdale. This one depicts Saint Hildegard of Bingen who was a 12th century Benedictine Abbess. I enjoyed researching her life; her accomplishments were pretty much unprecedented for a woman of that time. She is probably best known for […]

Our Lady of the Valley

  Really pleased to have received the go-ahead for one of our next commissions (pictured is my hand painted scaled water-colour design). I’ll soon be starting to draft the full size cartoon for this 7ft diameter window for Our Lady of the Valley Catholic Church in the beautiful Okanagan.

Art Deco Clouds

We have just completed our Moses window, which we won’t get to install for a little while yet. Here is a photo of the top section depicting Mount Sinai; John is particularly pleased with his art deco inspired clouds.

CSI Stained Glass

Back to some painted restoration and identifying the paint binders and techniques of the original artist to recreate a badly damaged inscription. it was gum arabic and then oil, by the way. #csiStainedGlass    

Inspiration; Where We Find It (Part 2)

In the first part of my musing about inspiration, I wrote about my mentors; artists who directly inspired me. This time I’m thinking about an artist who I could never have met, but whose work has inspired and encouraged me. When I was in my mid teens, and I knew that I wanted a career […]

Inspiration; Where We Find It

I haven’t posted anything for a while, I think like most people I’m just trying to get my head around what is happening and I don’t think there is going to be business as usual for quite some time. Clearly there is a lot of anxiety in the news and our social media feeds, and […]

Cigar Lounge Window Installed

  Our Cuban themed window is installed! We’re really happy to have this one in its “forever” home – Chappy’s Cigar Lounge itself is still undergoing the finishing touches, but the pièce de résistance is in and everything else will follow! We loved working on this one; designing, acid etching and painting. Although we did have […]

Cuban Inspired Cigar Lounge

    We’ve just completed the painting stage of our Cuban inspired Cigar Lounge window. This project has been a lot of fun at each stage – our most heated debate was over who got to paint which section! I let John tackle the tricky tonal work on the ’59 Oldsmobile, while I painted the tricky […]

’59 Oldsmobile

  First painting stage – ’59 Oldsmobile. After completing the etching of a beautiful piece of French Ruby Flash on Clear.  

Cuban Themed Cigar Lounge

  One of my favourite things about my job is the variety of design briefs we get. Our current project is for a cigar lounge and depicts Cuba from the growing and drying of tobacco through to the unique mix of architecture and cultural influences. We will be doing a lot of acid etching to […]

Creation Windows Installed

  Installation day at St. Joseph’s, Langley. The first two Creation windows are in and the remaining ten in the sequence are being commissioned as benefactors come forward. We had some great light in the morning, beautifully casting the colours over the wall, but by the time we were finished in the afternoon it was […]

Our Wonderful World of Gilroy

  Inspired by a friend’s visit to Guinness in Dublin – welcome to our Wonderful World of Gilroy here in sunny Vancouver. Unfortunately, the famous John Gilroy doesn’t work here, however mine is a legend in his own lunchtime……. #gilroystainedglass #masterglasspainters #stainedglass  #authenticstainedglass #stainedglassartist #glasspainting

The Craft of Fabrication

This is the part of stained glass that most people are more familiar with; John is fabricating all the painted and kiln fired pieces together to make the window. #gilroystainedglass #masterglasspainters #stainedglass  #authenticstainedglass #stainedglassartist #glasspainting

Painting Legs

Painting Adam and Eve’s disembodied legs. Just another day at the office…….

Design Concept Coming to Life

Designing “Creation” John painting “Creation” “Creation”, completed, on the easel for one last check over After a relaxing Thanksgiving we’re back hard at work in the studio. The project is underway for my sequence of twelve water colour designs for a church in Langley, BC.  It’s so rewarding seeing John at the easel bringing my concept […]

Drawing “Creation”

  I hope you are all enjoying this lovely weather! I’m having fun finishing the full size drawing (known in the biz as the “cartoon”) for the first window in a sequence for St Joseph’s, Langley. The first stage of the process was the scaled water colour design, and now the cartoon is an interesting combination […]

Cute Inscription

I had a little fun with this cute inscription this week, although the tiny letters almost left me cross-eyed! The client wanted his and his wife’s initial along with an indication of the third member of their family. It is being included within the restoration of a pair of approximately 100 year old residential windows […]

Seahorse by the Sea Shore

“Seahorse” (detail) Our seahorse is finally home! Installed today in the entryway of a beautiful new build by the sea, our window adds colour, warmth and interest as you enter the front door and is perfectly in keeping with the amazing view of the sea shore as you continue through into the living room. There […]

Our Lady of the Atonement Window

  So delighted to have just installed the last section of the Our Lady of the Atonement window at St. Joseph the Worker in Richmond! This 115 square foot window encompasses four sections of authentic stained glass, including traditional glass painting, staining and kiln firing. The design centrally depicts Our Lady of the Atonement with […]

A Seahorse for the New Year

New Year, new interesting project! I’m really enjoying creating this window for a home by the sea, at the moment it’s up on the easel being painted. Never having drawn or painted a seahorse before, I did a bit of research. I had no idea that there are so many species in such variety and […]