Back to the Walls...

 

The Chapel Backside Continued....

By now you know the drill, Dear Readers, the long step by step process for making the illusion of rocks on the Castle walls, so you might find this post redundant. But I need to document the way the walls have been "finished" because it might be a long time before anybody sees them again! The next step required making the arched tops for the Chapel windows. This time I am leaving them very simple with no carved teeth. It is unlikely that such small windows would have been given such an ornamental detail (or maybe I am just in a hurry and will regret this one day!) And yet I have used a "carved stone" motif for the sides of the windows. My only excuse is that I have already attached this same trim to the sides of the other Chapel window which is on the outside wall and readily visible. I thought they should match and I really just wanted to get the back wall done!

Once the walls had been primed

 the next step was the lighter gray paint.

And then the outlining of the "rock" courses.

It went faster than I expected... 

I had already worked out many of the details

 on the more complicated back wall of The Great Hall.

I just needed to make the courses relatively consistent

 with those of The Great Hall... 

because they will stand side by side 

and those courses will be continued

 around to the front eventually!

 They needed to match!

(Another reason to get all the back walls done at once.)

The tower is quite tall... 

I needed to use a step ladder!

And then the "rocks" get painted...

Here you can see the window arches have been attached.

And the "rocks are all painted...

And it is dark and late....

And you can hardly see it back there!

In the morning light it is time to paint the grout.

Again, this went faster than I thought it would!

And again, it transforms the structure in a magical way!

I can't fit the entire Tower into one picture!

Here's the top with the crenelations.

This is the back wall that will hardly ever be seen!

I wanted to see the Chapel windows with the lights on...

Now you can really see them!

I have to confess, I just love the way it looks!

And because the back wall will not be visible.... 

but the side wall will be, where it rises above The Great Hall,

I needed to get the "rock" courses continued around to the side.

(Sorry for the blurry photo!)

Here the rocks have been painted....

And grouted. 

Again, it is getting late and dark.

And even though I really didn't want to...

I turned those painted sides back to the wall.

And you can see how little The Castle looks changed.

But now, Dear Readers, 

I know what it can look like... 

and will look like...

Someday...

 When I get the rest of those walls finished!

I will Dream of it...

 

The Chapel Tower...

 

 Do You Even Remember the Chapel....

You will have to forgive me, Dear Readers, because I do not even Remember the last time we really visited the Chapel, let alone accomplished any work on it! It was one of the first "rooms" of the Castle that I got really involved with decorating the interior, and as with so many of my projects... it is nowhere near finished! I would not even know where to look for good shots of the interior, and while the Castle is all pulled apart it is difficult to get any interior pictures. So for now I will just show you the progress on the exterior, because I have decided to paint it too while the sections are movable. As with the Lord's Tower (the other end of the Castle) the wall that faces the Great Hall has no wiring along the sides (because the stairs and doors run along the inside) so I could prime it and paint it fairly easily. But the Back wall was as unfinished as all the other ones.

Here I have primed the wall... 

(it is just behind the corner of the Great Hall 

which you see in the foreground with the crenelations getting painted).

 

Here is the back side of the Chapel. 

I have just added the base of the window frames.

That pin has been holding the glass window in place for Years!!

Here you can see those windows from the inside ...

 they are "stained" glass and represent 

The Archangel Gabriel and Saint Michael.

(Clumsily drawn by me with leaded glass paint.)

Again, from the outside, trying to get trim all around.

I will need to carve the arched tops.

But the really challenging task 

was carving those channels for the wires.

Here you can see I am slowly gluing them in.

The wood is very hard in the darker grain, 

and not too hard in the lighter parts...

But you need to make the channel relatively straight to the corner.

And the "electrical box" for this section of the Castle 

will eventually be built on the outer side wall where it is accessible.

For now I am just getting the wires buried

 on the back section and through the corner holes.

I even carved the channels for the upper rooms 

which I have not yet begun to construct, 

so I could get the primer on the whole back side wall.

And then we need to make sure the lights still work...!

Yay, They do!

Here is the view from the exterior with just the candle lights....

 

Here is the view from the interior....

I know it is barely visible... but so moody!

And with the flash turned on...

Way too bright....!

It shows clearly how much I still have to finish.

Alas, for now it will have to wait, Dear Readers,

 while I get the back wall of

 the Chapel Tower finished.

But at least now you will be able to say 

you Remember the Chapel!

A Little More In The Chapel

Stained Glass Window - Take Two

Just a quick reminder, Dear Readers, there are two days left until the drawing for my giveaway! Just leave a comment on the previous post and I will include you in the drawings!

Meanwhile, I have not been idle! But the project I have been working on is not an easy one! The windows for my Castle dollhouse must each be fitted individually to the openings I cut in the walls of the Castle. They are all arched openings.... as was the norm in early Castles because they represented the strongest way of spanning an opening in the stone walls. There are no kits for arched windows that I know of.... and if there were, they would not fit the individual window openings I made.... my skills with the saw being a little on the amateur side... the saw cuts are NOT precisely even! So I have compensated by developing a custom window frame method that requires a lot of patient sanding to fit the openings exactly. I use basswood boards about 1/8th inch thick and cut out the window frame from a carefully made tracing of the opening. I cut two of these, and keep track of which side faces in and which faces out.... because they will only fit exactly one way! Then I sand and carve and adjust until they do fit snugly in the opening. They are spaced about one eighth inch apart.... which is the dimension of the glass pane that will be sandwiched between them! It is getting easier with each window I make.... but it is a little daunting to think of all the windows I have to go.....

Here you can see the frame cut to fit the chapel window,

and with the carved "stone" pillar details added but not yet painted........

Here is a closer view, with the painted "stone" pillars that will be attached at each side when it is done. I apologize for the poor lighting of some of these pictures...... The weather has been VERY dark and gloomy and it makes it hard to light things properly!

This is a view from the outside, clearly showing the irregular nature of the arched opening I had to fit the frame to......
And another gloomy one of the interior showing the "faux stone" painting on the window frame.

Here I have started the process of painting the "stained" glass window itself. I place the glass over a detailed drawing of the images, spaced exactly as the window openings are spaced, being sure the glass pane is centered so it will fit correctly in the opening. Then I draw the outlines with the stained glass paint "leading" outliner. It is difficult to make the stuff flow in a smooth and precise way.... but I think it would be harder to try to make the outlines with the real lead strips some people have used on their windows. Anyway, having started with one method, I will continue to use it for the duration of this project... afraid that too many different methods would look very odd! I have chosen to portray Saint Peter in the left window, and Saint Paul in the right window..... I'm calling it the Peter Paul window........

Then I begin the coloring process...... it is always hard to know when to STOP adding color!!

I wanted the sense that some of the glass was not colored.... perhaps there was not enough money to buy colored glass to make the whole window with colors... and having some clear panes lets in a little more light..... so I have left their robes mostly clear glass......

Ahhhh! Here we see the window in place and lit from outside......

This is the view from inside the Great Hall looking into the Chapel................

Come a little closer! (Yes, the moody dark shots are deliberate...!)

And closer still....... can you imagine you are walking into the Chapel....?

And you can walk right up to look closely at the Peter Paul window..............!

And because the completion of the Peter Paul window made it so OBVIOUS that the next wall panel to paint MUST be the one over the door to the Monk's Cell... I have made progress on that too! The story I am portraying is the Noah and the Flood.... a decision I had made at the beginning when I laid out which story would be on which wall. And so it has seemed a little EERIE that I am painting it at a time that we are experiencing RAIN ..... Day after Day after DAY, with no end in sight! And large areas of our country have been experiencing Historic Flooding! Fortunately, my part of the world has just been WET and GLOOMY but NOT flooded! And as I write this we have actually had two days in a row with NO RAIN and only scattered showers in the area! So I am not building an ARK.... but I am painting one....... !
I find it interesting to note that while this story is commonly portrayed in recent times.... it is very hard to find versions painted in the Medieval Manuscripts I own! I found only three versions in all of my books..... So I have taken two of them to paint on my Castle Chapel walls. One shows the animals being loaded into the Ark, and the other shows them returning to dry land. The styles of the two originals are vastly different... but I am copying them both together anyway.

Here you can see the beginning of the painting process.......

And here you can see the mostly completed paintings.......

There is still a HUGE amount of detail work to go before they are done... particularly on the bottom painting where they return to land........ When I am done, then I will show them with the originals I have copied from so you can see how different they end up.....
Here is another view of the nearly done painting in place... I apologize for the poor photo......

This is a slightly better view showing BOTH the new window and the newly painted wall.....

And a view of the whole chapel as it is now........ I wish the lighting were better.....

But, that's what I've been doing lately.......

Just A Little More In The Chapel

Chapel Windows

Stained Glass You may recall, when you last saw the Chapel, it was through the tiny window into the Monk's cell, and that I had decided it would not have glass because back in those days glass was a luxury that only the wealthiest could afford. It would not be wasted on a tiny bedroom window! But the windows of the Chapel proper would be another story altogether. The Chapel was the House of God and deserved the finest materials and treasures that the household could afford. But here I must digress, and remind you that even though I have not decided just how "modern" this Castle will be, the story is that originally it was an Abbey that had been abandoned and once it was fortified as a Castle, the Lord made many improvements and "modernizations". Amongst those were adding glass to all the important windows, especially the Chapel windows. Now I know that many of you will be like me in that when you think of Chapel windows, you automatically think of stained glass windows. I think of the windows of the "Sainte Chapel" in Paris, or the Rose window of Chartres Cathedral for instance. Below you can see a picture of a portion of a stained glass window from Canterbury Cathedral in England.




This window was probably created in the fifteenth century, making it from the later end of the era that I am trying to portray with my Castle. Below you can see a drawing from a fifteenth century manuscript showing a Glass Works in action, showing all the steps taken in the process of making glass.

I know that by the fourteenth century they knew how to make colored glass by adding various chemicals to the molten glass.... even though I am not sure exactly what those chemicals were! They were able to produce blue, red and yellow glass. And yet, when I scour the pages of the illuminated manuscripts from that era, I only find clear glass being portrayed in the illuminations of church windows! Below is an excellent example from the copy of Boccacio's "Decameron" that I refer to so often. You can see the painted ceiling of the chapel and the carefully drawn leaded glass panes in the windows. This was illuminated in the early part of the fifteenth century.

And here is another example of Chapel windows.... clear glass, NOT stained glass, in an illumination from "The Hours of Catherine of Cleves" painted in the mid to late fifteenth century.

And a most magnificent version painted in the "Hours of Mary of Burgundy" in the later half of the fifteenth century....... showing not just the clear glass in the Church windows, but also a magnificent close-up of the bulls-eye roundels of glass used to make the window through which we are looking!

So why am I showing you all these NOT-stained glass windows? Well, really just to explain that even though it was highly unlikely that a Chapel in a remote Castle, in the thirteenth century or early fourteenth century, would have stained glass windows, I am choosing to make mine stained glass!

The story goes like this: Sometime in the late thirteenth century, one of the Lords who went on a Crusade took his young nephew with him as Squire. When they returned from the East, where they had been exposed to luxuries and artistic wonders too magnificent to describe, the young Nephew decided to stay in London and became apprenticed in the glass-making trades. In time he became a Master glazier of great reknown. After many years he returned to the Castle in the North and spent the last years of his life creating stained glass windows for the Chapel in the Castle. And so it came about that this remote Castle has beautiful stained glas windows way ahead of the times!


Below you can see the Chapel with the beginnings of the stone work painted and the unglazed window openings.

Here you can see it with the vaulted ceiling temporarily in place. I have added a layer of stiff paper to the vaulting ..... eventually it will be painted as if it were frescoes......

You can see the two narrow windows in the Chapel (sorry about the lighting.... the Castle sits in front of my real windows, and daylight is visible through one of them, while the wall is visible through the other, making it difficult to photograph!) The classic arched shape of the windows comes from the structural necessity of carrying the weight of all the stone above the window openings... an arch is the strongest shape and was used from Roman times onward. This Castle is pre-gothic!

Here below you can see the design I have drawn in "lead" on each of the pieces of window glass. I used a simple glass painting kit available in craft stores, having never painted on glass before! You can see that the glass pane for the rounded top section of the window is itself square. I did not want to have to cut round glass, so I designed a form that would let me use a square piece of glass sandwiched between two pieces of wood cut in the pattern of the window.

Below you can see the cut arch-shaped pieces of wood , painted to resemble the stone they are pretending to be..... and the beginnings of the colored painting on the glass. You can also see a little bit of the window "frame" pieces. I discovered that the standard railing they sell to make for stair banisters has a channel cut in the bottom that fits perfectly over the edge of a pane of glass, making it really easy to cut and fit around each pane! That saved me a lot of cutting and fitting!

And a slightly closer view. Each pane of glass is about one inch wide by about four and a half inches long. I have chosen to depict the two Archangels, Gabriel and Michael.

Here all the coloring is completed.

If you look carefully you can see the pencil sketches showing the placemant of the windows, and the framing that will be built to surround them.....

Now the glass is in the framing pieces, ready to be fitted in the window openings.

Here is the view with the windows in place (Sorry about the poor lighting..... that window is now too dark because it is night outside...)

Here is a better shot, showing that my cutting and fitting is NOT as snug as I would have wished... I will be covering the gaps with the "carved stone" trim around the window......

A close-up of the Gabriel window.......

And the Michael window!

So, no matter that it is possibly anachronistic, my castle Chapel has stained glass windows made by the Master glazier as his last great masterworks!

Chapel Windows