Stained Glass Window Designs in Paper

These are some photos of the year 9s stained glass windows.  These were part of the year 9 ‘Ocean’s Bounty’ theme, which lasted for about 5 months and they covered lots of different techniques.  They took inspiration for these windows from their fish and sea life drawings.  They were asked to think about different patterns to create an interesting composition.  We also looked at a range of contemporary and traditional stained glass window examples.  Students had to think carefully about connecting all of the black lines, to make it look like a real stained glass window.  They cut these patterns out on the black card, using craft knives.

They are made with black card and tissue paper.  To make the tissue paper, students layered different colours on top of a plastic bag, covered with watery PVA glue and left to dry.  You can also splodge bleach on top of the tissue paper to create nice patterns and effects.  Once it had dried, the paper simply peeled off the plastic bags and were carefully cut out and stuck on the back of the black card.

I have these on display in my classroom and visitors always comment on how successful they look.

After the students completed this project we used their stained glass window designs to make laser cut brooches – see my other post for examples of those.

Here are some from last year's classes.  The same technique but their theme was animals in their environment, with a Franz Marc influence...

Light Sensitive Paper with Wire Portraits (Nature Print Paper)

Last summer I visited the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, where they were running summer activities around the gallery.  Outside in the courtyard there was a stall set up with this ‘Nature Print Paper’.  Visitors were encouraged to make a paper silhouette, based on something they had seen in the gallery, and place this on top of the light sensitive paper.  After some time in direct sunlight, the chemicals on the paper’s surface react and leave an imprint.  To stop this reaction, you place the paper in water, which was the lovely pond at the V & A.  The colours on the paper actually reverse (ie – they white parts go dark blue) – I don’t know how this works, but it’s a fun thing to watch.  I was so impressed with this technique that I went straight out and bought some of this magic paper.

Here is the one I made that day.....

It was only when I was doing the wire portraits a few months later back in Abu Dhabi that I thought to use it.  We get sun every day of the year – so it is perfect for this!  The year 8 classes loved it - it was a chance to take them outside for a change, and it’s also great watching the paper magically turn in the sunlight, then again when the process is stopped in the water.  The blues get darker when they dry.