I am so excited about this latest project and now I can shout about it cos’ Mike and Helen have got it.

It started with Mike’s painting of mountains and lake….I worked it up into a scene of great significance…..Wastwater. The halfway point of the Bob Graham round, a feat that Mike completed a couple of years ago in truly horrendous conditions – he has become famous for his ‘wet lap’.  (I have fond memories of huddling down on Stake Pass in the middle of the night with pal Jess, she dressed as a pumpkin lantern and me equipped for fishing with me brolly, whilst waiting for Mike to arrive so we could feed him some grub and send him on his way……. but that’s a whole other tale).

So here is my initial drawing and selection of palette…(They went for the stunning handmade glass!! – see post ‘why have cotton…’)

And on arrival of stunningly beautiful glass I tweaked the design a little, coloured in my drawing and lived with it for a while stuck to my back door to make sure I was happy.

Happy! I begun to cut. A few nervous moments – this stuff is the most expensive I have ever handled. And thankfully it cut like butter! (Well almost!)

Look at these wonderful off-cuts (I have been having fun with those).

Then came the real exciting bit….time to have a ‘blast’! Mike and Helen wanted the name of their house incorporated in the panel. I had discarded leadwork as this would have been too fussy and would detract from the scene. I couldn’t paint as I had no kiln. Etching was the way to go – but disaster, my acid etch cream was so weak it couldnae’ remove the flash on the glass. It was either stronger acid and risk losing the flesh on my bones – or sandblasting! And my mate Peter came up with the idea of contacting memorial mason’s Ed Waller and Dean Mason, (honest, that is their names!) and that was the start of my ‘blast’!

Ed made me a template to suit my sizes, stuck it on my sheet of very expensive flashed glass, and ‘The Pillars’ was revealed. Flipping G-or-geous!!! I was so excited by it I scuttled home and worked up a resist design for the water…..be-you-ti-ful and subtle enough to differentiate the water and sky as I was using the same flat violet glass for both.

I messed about a bit debating whether to add some clouds in the sky but decided against it. Less is more after all. (And you should see the sample I created. By now I had persuaded Ed to let me loose on the machine and I had serious fun carving craters in pieces of glass. I’ve been back many times since and have doodled about with some experimental techniques…watch this space. I’m addicted to having a blast! More on this later, I promise)

But now, back to the bench. Leadwork went well. (I love those horseshoe nails, a thing of beauty do you not think.) Then it is soldering, grouting and serious elbow grease cleaning it all up.

And here it is, I am so pleased with it. Afraid my photo’s do not really do justice to the sparkling beauty and depth of colour of the real thing but its all I have. Mike and Helen have taken the real thing home and in the New Year it will be gracing their lovely new front door – and hopefully stopping traffic all over Milnthorpe!

Thanks for a great project. (Just f.y.i finished panel size is 500mm x 500mm)