stained glass for narrowboats

So, Tony asked if I could paint his cratch board window, and I said, “Of course!” and then thought, but did not say “…well, at least I think so….”

And then I went away and did a bit of mugging up on the topic. And drew up a design. And ordered some paints. I used Pebeo Vitrail, a solvent-based glass paint that promises to be waterproof but advises against the use of dishwashers. I thought Tony’s boat would be safe from that. 

I sellotaped three bloody great pieces of paper onto the side of my boat, and drew up a template; there’s precious little room on board Eve for a drawing board like my old one. Then I cut out the template and stuck it to the back of the glass, and lined in the design using Pebeo Cerne outliner. This creates a black bead, something like the leaded strips you get between panels of stained glass, which is of course the intended effect.

As I was moored outside the Barge Inn at Honeystreet at the time, I had some interested spectators; one (whose name I didn’t catch) said “I’ve got a tattoo just like that!” and showed me. And so he did; it was a rising sun over the Uffington white horse, surmounted by his daughter’s name. 

“A bloke in the field here did it for me” he said. The field in question being the camping field next to the pub, where assorted tipis and old vans and buses were assembled ready to welcome in the equinox. “Quite like Stonehenge in the old days”, I remarked to Boat Teenager, who had been kept awake for most of the night by the band, and would have gone in to listen except that there was no-one else of her age around. We agreed, though, that the band, despite the billing, were not what we’d call psychedelic. I’d been hoping for something a bit Hawkwind at least. “Who?” asked Boat Teenager. I went back to my painting.

It was hard to get a smooth coverage of the larger areas- the green hill with the horse on it was particularly difficult- either the paint was too thick, and the brush strokes very much in evidence, or if I thinned it it was too thin.... I tried stippling it, which created a far better effect. I subsequently tried sponging, on the background to the wheat- I cut off pieces of washing up sponge and dabbed the dark brown paint on with it; this was an effective method.

a hare, of course!

there's a harvest mouse in there somewhere


...there it is!