These are creative retreats for beginners and artists in any media, not just stained glass lovers. Here are photos from the retreat I hosted here at my studio in November 2022.
I have a few places still available in my 5-day residential Intro to Glasspainting workshops beginning April 24 and May 8. No experience needed. Only 4 students per workshop.
I taught glasspainting to glass scientists from Corning and elsewhere as part of the United Nations International Year of Glass initiative. It was such a good experience all round, for both artists and scientists.
Please share this message with anyone who might be interested. They can find out more by clicking the Workshops tab on the navigation bar at coombscriddle.com Everything is online, including a video of the accommodations and links to scholarships. Tuition is $860 for the 5-day workshop.
I am building my legacy in stained glass. Why? Because I can imagine a future where artists in all media—including glassblowers, ceramicists, and mosaic and stained glass makers—will be able to paint easily onto any vitreous surface that may be kiln-fired. I imagine artists worldwide, including those without privilege, glasspainting with ease and fluency, inexpensively and joyfully, without technical restraint or frustration. So I am working to place my teaching methods undiluted into the hands of those who will continue to share them generously.
Please join us for a stained glass painting evening on Sept 29th 2022 in support of my legacy project.
We will make you dinner with home-baked bread, beef chili, vegetarian chili, cakes and pastries. Come and meet artists, friends, stained glass folks and my first stained glass legacyrecipient Luis Gianera.
Talk to my students, see their work. I’ll be teaching a workshop that week, 9/26-9/30. I’ll also be teaching a glasspainting workshop the week before, 9/19-9/23. Both are Intro level and open to all and spaces are still available for last-minute signups.
Everyone is welcome to try out my proprietary glasspainting recipe during Open Studio. We’ll have glass and pre-mixed paint ready for you. Those who donate to my GoFundMe legacy can have have their glasspainting kiln-fired and shipped to them. Luis and I will pre-paint glass to giveaway. I also have stained glass books and materials to share.
Where? My studio and our home is at 359 Rue Madeline, Readsboro, Vermont 05350. Click link and scroll down this page for location and How to Get Here. Questions? Call or text me at 413-652-7819. Or call Richard at 413 652 5952. He’ll be here too, with stories to tell about his summer at Salem Arts.
Please Share this invitation to anyone who cares about the future of stained glass skills and craftsmanship.
Please RSVP via email
You can play a part in helping artists and glasspainters worldwide, of all economic means, learn easy and joyful methods of painting kiln-fired glass by donating to my fundraiser and supporting my stained glass legacy.
The workshop began with slides: How do paintings get transformed into stained glass windows? How does the painting on the left (below) by John LaFarge become the stained glass window on the right?
Dawn Comes On The Edge Of Night. Painting and stained glass by John LaFarge 1903
We looked at the work of John LaFarge (above), Fernand Leger, David Hockney, Marc Chagall, Kehinde Wiley and others. These artists have all translated their work into stained glass, breaking a painting into separate pieces of color separated by black lines. Each tried not to lose the spirit, style, energy of their original painting. We reviewed slides with an eye for line, specifically tracelines (the first stage of glasspainting) and cutlines, the pattern of lead/solder used to assemble separate pieces of glass into a single picture. On Monday afternoon students examined photographs of existing stained glass windows in a variety of styles and traced over (or guessed) where the leadlines were.
Tuesday’s Powerpoint covered the major visual components of stained glass. Besides line, stained glass generally includes color, the manipulation of opacity/transparency through glasspainting, and tone/value/chiaroscuro – the balance of light areas and dark areas. In stained glass these range from the brilliance of sunlight to the blackness of lead. We listed them on the chalkboard, noting especially the different stages, or layers of glasspainting.
In the afternoon students arranged square tiles of glass into a smooth tonal sequence. There are tricks to help perceive value more accurately, including photographing in grayscale. Value is a powerful driver of composition, especially in stained glass.
We also discussed a design for a stained glass window by Michael Oatman. I’d translated Michael’s collage of 1950’s magazine illustrations into a window for a space satellite made from a repurposed Airstream trailer, part of his installation at MASS MoCA (the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art). Students got to see the cutline and photographs of the design (below left) and work-in-progress before visiting the window itself in situ, 20 minutes away at MASS MoCA.
It was a busy week, with hands-on drawing exercises and more slide presentations. By Friday students had designed their own stained glass panels. Three students cut their panels over the weekend and are staying on to paint them during this week’s Advanced Glass Painting workshop. Here’s a photo taken on Saturday of Mary Hartwig’s glasscutting in progress.
Kiln loaded with glass painted by students on the first day of this week’s workshop in Vermont
Here’s a kiln-load of student work painted on the first day of this week’s intro to glasspainting workshop.
Trace & texture: an Introduction to Glasspainting with Propylene Glycol is a hands-on, in-person, 5-day workshop in Vermont on painting and kiln-firing stained glass using my proprietary recipe, tools and techniques. It is the first in a series of three consecutive workshops. The second is a rigorously structured 5-day Stained Glass Design workshop. The third and last in the series of 5-day workshops is Advanced Glasspainting where students paint and fire a panel of their own design. Instruction flows seamlessly from one workshop to the next over a three-week period. Students often sign up for two or three consecutive workshops. Extended hours and optional open studio time at weekends is available.
I’ll be teaching this 5-day workshop twice again this year, on Sept 30th 2021 and Oct 25th 2021. Here’s a schedule. Move quickly if you’re planning to apply for a tuition scholarship from the American Glass Guild. The deadline is Aug 28th, a week from tomorrow. Find out here about the AGG James C Whitney scholarships and apply online. US and non-US residents are eligible. Both the American Glass Guild and the Stained Glass Association of America have generously provided financial aid since 2007. Support them if you can. It’s important to teach these traditional skills, and I’m one of just a handful of artists who offer stained glass painting and design workshops in the US.
The workshop series beginning Sept 30th is fully enrolled. The workshop series beginning Oct 25th 2021 is still open for registration. Class size is limited to 4 students due to the pandemic. Places fill quickly. You must be fully vaccinated to attend. Accommodation within walking distance is available Oct 24 – Nov 13, 2021. Private room. Huge beautiful kitchen, lounge, deck and bathrooms shared with workshop cohort. Inexpensive.
During the first 17 minutes of this week’s introductory glasspainting workshop students learned how to sign their name and trace images with a dip-pen.
If you’re interested in taking a workshop with me there’s still plenty of time to apply for a scholarship from the American Glass Guild. Their deadline is August 30th 2021. You will need to select a workshop (with me or another stained glass instructor) as part of your application. Those who have already signed up for one of my September 2021 workshops are eligible to apply. International applicants are also welcome. Here’s my schedule of Fall 2021 stained glass workshops for beginners, stained glass professionals and artists in any media who might wish to attend. And here’s the direct link to an online application for the American Glass Guild’s James C. Whitney scholarships for 2021.
It was once feared that stained glass would become ‘a lost art’ but the tide has turned in recent years. Thank goodness! Younger artists are taking an interest, many with the support of two US organizations that work tirelessly to keep stained glass alive and thriving.
The Stained Glass Association of America (SGAA) is a vital community of stained glass artists, artisans and aficionados of stained glass. The American Glass Guild (AGG) is a nationwide group of equally dedicated independent artists and professionals. Both organizations encourage and promote the creation of new work and the conservation of stained glass. Both have also, for 13 years now, generously supported my workshops with tuition scholarships. Please support them if you can.
In the process of making stained glass there are two stages where the glass is easeled up against the daylight. First, when selecting glass, then later, when glasspainting. Easeling glass is time-consuming and thus expensive, so why do this?
Here’s my current work for All Saints Chapel at Carroll College in Helena Montana. Note how the opalescent glasses change at night/dusk. This is an effect that can only be estimated, whether on light table or easel, because my north-facing easel does not precisely mimic the light in Montana. The easel does, however, take out a lot of the guesswork.
Yesterday was a spectacular day in the studio, working with my smart and lovely studio assistant, Katie Bullock. I’m working with Oster’s Ancient Winchester silverstain fired face-up in my Hoaf Speedburn kiln to create a marvelous blue-tinged mirrored image that breathes a golden haze around each individual print.
Both the mirroring and areas of carefully chosen opalescent glass will be visible from inside the chapel after dark, when the rest of the stained glass goes black.
Annotating the geometric layout to make it easier to print the repeating motifs onto glass.
Katie printing multiples of the vesica pisces petal motif using the annotated grid as a guide. The petals are overlaid in a very specific fashion that results in a spiraling sunburst.
Placing painted glass on trays ready to be fired. The silverstain looks opaque at this stage.
Above, a tray of fired glass. Below, various reflections.
Thanks again a hundred-fold to Cliff Oster, who formulated this stain for me back in 2005 when I was working on stained glass for St Mary’s Cathedral in Portland, Oregon. I can control the colour density and value via different methods of application; or by altering the viscosity of the paint; or by shifting the proportions of water to propylene glycol in the paint thinning process. This one silverstain, Ancient Winchester, can create beautiful, transparent colour ranging from a ‘barely there’ pale lemon yellow to deep amber brown. I can also control (to some extent) the different levels of bleed and irridescence or mirroring by changing my kiln temperature and firing conditions. On top of all that, the clay carrier washes off easily and never sticks to the glass. In this particular application for Carroll College chapel the reverse of the glass (some of which may be seen closeup when the windows are installed) looks like mirrored copper. We were made for each other, me and Ancient Winchester, and I never use any other silverstains.
coombs criddle stained glass 