The Chapel....

 

 Windows....

It Has Been Quite a while, Dear Readers, since I last made windows for the Chapel! As with many parts of this Huge Castle building project, I sallied forth many years ago with little knowledge and much enthusiasm and have followed many many detours along the way. The two windows on the rear wall above the altar are actually the first of the glass windows I built for The Castle, and began my quest for the best method to use. They were constructed in September of 2010. And the windows on the side wall were built in May of 2011, almost exactly fifteen years ago! And I must also remind you that it took me a while to even decide to construct the exterior front opening walls of the castle... that came about in July of 2018 if you need to pursue the chronology... it is all there in the archives by date. But it was only two years ago, when I finally returned my attention to working on The Chapel that I gave any consideration to the subject matter for the opening wall side of The Chapel. The window openings had been cut years before, the two tall narrow windows were to be opposite the two on the back behind the altar. Because the paining on the wall between the windows will eventually have a version of The Annunciation (when Mary is told she will bear the Christ Child) I decided to have the windows show St. Anne (Mother of Mary) with Mary as a child, and The Visitation (when Mary, now pregnant, greets her cousin St. Elizabeth who is at an advanced age, pregnant with S. John the Baptist). As for the construction of the windows, that was just a matter of following my now well established method of building the "glass sandwich" window frames. It is time consuming and finicky work, but it makes the glass panes securely fitted to the openings, however oddly shaped they are. You can see above the shaped panels are getting the "quatrefoil" motif cut into the top of the arched openings.

 

And because each window needs two panels for the inner and outer frame, 

the quatrefoils need to align with each other as exactly as possible. 

This is a tedious process requiring much careful drilling and sanding

 but the effort is worth it in the end!

 

And testing the panels in the window openings...

 

And then each panel gets cut to make the window opening. 

I started by making the opening an arch... the easiest way to cut it,

 but was pretty sure I would square up the lower pane opening

 because the original windows were shaped that way.

 

Here both the windows have been cut

 with the arched lower panel. 

But I will square them up.

Like so!

 

 

And the bottom rail of the window frames is added.

 

 

And if you look at the right angle... 

you can see through to the windows on the rear wall!

(The Chapel door blocks part of the view...) 

 

Then the primer...

 

And the first coat of gray paint and the "rocks" getting painted...

 

Before we finally get to the design of the glass panes themselves!

I spent a few days going through my Medieval Manuscript books

 looking for the best representations of the images I wanted to portray. 

In the Middle Ages, these "tropes" had become very standardized. 

The symbolism and even the images themself were carefully copied

 from book to book, place to place and year to year and with very little variation. 

But in the Early Middle Ages, the era I am claiming for my Castle,

 there was still a "primitive" originality to many of these designs. 

Even so, I had a hard time finding images to use directly

 and forgot to take pictures as I went. 

St. Anne is usually known for her raising of the Virgin Mary to be... 

and teaching her to read.... so I have chosen to show her 

holding a young Mary's hand and holding the book.

 

 The glass pane gets taped over the drawing, 

carefully aligning it with the outer window frame edge

 to be sure it will fit right! 

Then I draw with the "liquid lead" (a Gallery Glass product). 

This is a lot to fit into one narrow 1 inch wide pane of glass!

And the "liquid lead" goes on a bit lumpy. 

I have learned that it can be cleaned up a bit later

 once it has cured for a day. 

For the Visitation pane, I had to stick to only one figure, 

it is too narrow to show the greeting of both 

which is the main theme of this event.

 

Here is an example from the 1300's... 

showing at least the style of clothing contemporary to the painting

 (as was usual in the miniatures... the artists did not know

 ancient fashion so they portrayed what they knew). 

St. Elizabeth is supposed to be "elderly" (past childbearing years)

 but miraculously pregnant with St. John the Baptist.

 

 I drew a solitary figure, but obviously pregnant

 and touching her swollen belly as if she felt the baby move. 

She is looking toward the place on The Chapel wall

 that will have the Annunciation painting. 

I could not achieve an "elderly" appearance to her...

 but tried to make her solemn in wonderment.

 

The following day I began to "clean up" the blobby lead lines.

 Here St. Anne is partly done.

 

And here she is finished with the trimming.
 

And St. Elizabeth trimmed.

 

 

And both panes with the original designs.

I decided I needed to add a couple more lines

 for clarity of design, things that were too hard to fit 

with the blobby leading at the first go-round. 

In particular, features for the young Virgin Mary,

 and more details for the cloak of St. Elizabeth. 

If you look closely you can see a couple of yet untrimmed blobby lines! 

I will trim them before adding the glass paint.

 

 

Starting with the Quatrefoil windows at the top. 

 

And continuing with both at the same time 

so I could try to be sure the colors are balancing 

between the two windows. 

 

Nearly done. 

I wanted one more defining line for St. Elizabeth's cloak

 so I added another blobby line and will paint

 the rest when it has dried and been trimmed.

 

There! 

The glass painting is finished!

Now we just want to see them in place... right?

 

Ah, well, this is really not so easy! 

This is with the Chapel lights turned on.... 

and dreary dark evening light in the room....

 

And this is with the Chapel door open.... gosh, 

I am going to have to figure out how to get good pictures of this!

 I can't get the camera into The Chapel when the front is closed....! 

And it only shows in the light from The Chapel...

 

Well, even if we can't see it

 from outside, Dear Readers, 

I will know it is there!

But there we are at Last... 

The Chapel windows are done! 

Moonlight And Maidens

Just a Little Bit of Light....

A Glimmer of Light in the Darkness, Dear Readers, is all I have to show you this week. Real Life is full of Holiday Schedules and obligations, making Time for Minis more scarce than usual. But I did manage to work on the "stained glass" windows for the upstairs hallway in the Willowcrest. I used the same method I had tried with the smaller window in the stairwell, and for lack of a better method, I will probably use it on many of the windows in this house! This method is to use the "lead lines" paint that is meant for painting glass to resemble stained glass, but in this case it is used on the plastic windows I am making to replace the ones provided by the kit. Because it is plastic, I cannot bake it, and thus I decided to use nail polish for the colors, rather than the glass paint. Above, you can see I have designed the windows to continue the Moon Maiden theme that began in the lower hall and marched up the stairs. These Maidens represent the full of the moon..... it is hard to tell which is the "fullest", and I will probably adjust one of the moons to have a slight dark shadow as it begins to wane.

Here you can see I have started to add the color.... 

I even went shopping for a few new colors.....

One of which is this brilliant blue!

And then a paler blue for the gown......

and a pink for the flesh tones....

(It is hard to see these colors here...)

And a glimmering Gold for the hair on the Maiden on the left....

And here you can see them with the light from behind....

I know, it fades the colors almost to nothing.....

And the Moons have been painted with a pale yellow, too.

And now, we just want to see how they will look in place in the hallway....

But there is So Little light at this time of year!

You can barely see them at all in my Dark house!

But I found an ingenious LED Light at Joanne's Fabrics....

These are LED battery "tea lights" 

that turn on with a twist....

and are waterproof!

I am not certain I will be using this permanently, 

as I need to have access to turn it on and off...

But it is very handy for testing.....

I suspended it with a wire over the hallway.....

where the Moon Maiden Window is temporarily taped in place...

Just so we can get a Glimmer of an idea how this will look....

from inside the hallway....

(the Maiden on the right is mostly unpainted so she is barely visible)

And from the outside.... with the light on inside.

And slightly further away... the outside view.

But then I realized that I wanted the Moon Maidens 

to all have slightly different coloring...

So I went back for More nail polish!

And painted the remaining Maiden in Pearly white

With Scintillating Silver for her hair!

With the light shining through, it is still difficult to tell the colors....

I might consider adding a layer.....

But first we need to test them in place again...

The view from the inside....

And from the outside too.

 

Alas, it is so Dark, Dear Readers,

we can barely see them.....

Where is that Moon Light?

 Of course, the polish is rather reflective....

But the Moon light sure makes a difference!

Inside....

And outside!

Well, Dear Readers, it doesn't seem like I did much,

Except shed a little Glimmer of Light

On the Moon Maidens.

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