Design of the Month · July 2011
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"Art Deco Sunburst"
An unusual request for the placement of a stained glass panel drove this design. You see, this panel is not installed in a window, a door, a transom or even a sidelight. In fact, this panel is not inside a home/office/place of worship at all. Rather, it is installed in a custom fence. My client was working with a fencing company and an iron worker to create a one-of-a-kind fence for her long driveway The iron worker was brought in to create a custom iron frame for the stained glass panel. My client first requested I design something in the Art Deco look, using clear bevels, a specific orange color, and sage green glass. This first design was too "busy" looking, so we next turned to a rather simplistic Art Deco version of a sunset. My client was immediately happy with the design. Originally, this design was to be installed as a horizontal panel. But the look of the piece lent itself to a vertical treatment, and because the client had not yet finalized her contract with the iron worker, we decided to rotate the design. Since this is an outdoor piece, I designed it as a lead panel, framed in lead ½" H channel so that the iron worker could easily trim it down using a simple rasp, if necessary.
When choosing colors and textures, I always rely upon glass samples, placing them in windows so that the client and I see exactly what the glass will look like in specific installation settings. My client desired to use true Art Deco glass, so I brought out the Kokomo sample set. She chose three similar sage green glasses, along with a specific orange and a generic beige glass. I added in a peacock blue to give some much-needed contrast to so much green. To avoid straying away from her specific sage color, I used the Glass Eye 2000 glass library to lock in on the specific color, then present the same glass in a granite texture, and then find a similar but slightly different green glass. Now I could design two "sage green" colors using only one glass by having the smooth side out as glass A and the granite textured side as glass B. I went with the third green as suggested by the glass library, plus a beige, the orange, and my favorite peacock blue. The result is a beautiful, dramatic, outdoor-ready piece of art.
~ Christie A. Wood
About the artist
Christie Wood is the owner of Art Glass Ensembles, a full-service stained glass studio located in Denton, Texas. Christie is an Active Accredited member of the Stained Glass Association of America and has several CD-ROMs of designs available in Glass Eye 2000 format. In June 2011, Christie launched a new business called Green Planet Glass which specializes in giftwares manufactured entirely using glass recycled from larger Art Glass Ensembles projects. Check out our websites or search for us on Facebook.
This pattern may be used to make one or more artworks for sale or personal enjoyment. This pattern may be printed for personal use only and may not be sold or given away in printed or electronic form.
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