Stained Glass Painting

Julie Lafaille is a designer and teacher of decorative art. She specializes in faux stained glass and has created two successful instructional DVDs on stained glass patterns.

• Stained glass painting is a technique for painting on glass to simulate the look of stained glass - no cutting or assembly required. This book features all the information you need to make a piece of beautiful faux stained glass and also contains projects for working on less common surfaces, such as a mirror, a sheet of acetate, or a block of wood.

May 2015Always admired stained glass but thought it looked too challenging and expensive to do? Why not cheat a little and paint on the glass instead! You don’t have to invest in lots of tools to create the look of stained glass and you can do it to bring more surfaces to life than just windows. As the author says in the foreword this is a book full of ideas. You just need to buy paints, brushes and something to paint on plus something to prepare the surface. Chapters in the book cover the basics as well as more interesting techniques such as adding glitter, mixing colors and achieving all those fancy textures that you see on glass such as frosting, waves, stencilled patterns and pictures etc. The pictures show remarkably professional work that would make me think it was bought from a glazier. There are twenty five projects in here to make once you know the basics; all shown on a two page selector with thumb nail images. These vary from windows to trays, boxes, ornaments, mirrors and greetings cards. Each project features a large photo of the finished piece plus staged photos and drawings, a list of materials and techniques used (the latter particularly handy). This all makes for some pretty foolproof work and the end results look impressive. Designs include flowers, abstracts, comical, seasonal and even the ubiquitous cupcake. At the back are the full sized patterns as well as lists of Pebeo paints, mixing charts, troubleshooting and even a few blank pages for your own designs. Stackpole also produces a range of pattern books and one of these is Birds of the Beach (ISBN 9780811714716). This book has patterns for twenty birds you are likely to find on a beach, particularly if you live in the US although there are quite a few here also found in the UK. Choose from herring gull, snadpiper, dunlin, sanderling, puffin and more. Each project features a line drawing plus full sized picture of what you hope it is going to look like. There are no other instructions, these are all in the main book. Other titles include other birds, leaves and flowers.