What most people know as "stained glass"
is more
properly called leaded glass. I work in leaded glass, where
pieces of colored glass are cut, shaped, and soldered
together with lead into flat panels or dimensional shapes
(such as with Tiffany lamps, etc).
Stained glass is a different technique that involves
painting enamel pigments (made of ground glass
colored with various metallic oxides) onto glass and
firing in a kiln to a permanent finish. It can can very
complicated, because each color of enamel fires at a
different temperature, and therefore must be applied
in separate layers from highest to lowest temperature.
Some colors are acheived by layering two or more
transparent or translucent enamels. It's a technique
that has been used for centuries! I hope to learn glass
staining some day, but my studio here is hardly
equipped for it.
This is an example of a leaded glass suncatcher
that
I designed for Mike's mom.
I will includ more soon!