How to Design a Stained Glass Victorian Window
- 1). Research the era and history of your Victorian home style. Locate a book or images of windows in the relative shape, size and style of the window you want to design. Dover Publications offers hundreds of Victorian stained glass window designs on CDs and in small booklets to help inspire your creativity.
- 2). Select several sheets of 24- by 36-inch graph paper. Tape them together to accommodate the actual size of your window. Tape your paper down to a smooth table and tape a sheet of large tracing paper over the top. The graph paper is used to keep your lines straight and to help you measure as you design on the tracing paper.
- 3). Draw the outside perimeter of the window. Go over your pencil lines with a thick black marker. This will allow you to easily see your boundaries. Many Victorian-style stained glass windows have borders. If you have worked with stained glass before, you know that it is difficult to cut small shapes in glass. By examining your references, you should get an idea of the relative size of the border and how much detail you can include.
- 4). Measure and draw in the basic border perimeter lines. Think about each pencil line actually representing a lead line that is 1/8 of an inch thick. Look around your house for motifs or designs that are repeated in the moldings in the house. Some houses will feature stars or flowers; some will use geometric forms. If your house doesn't seem to have any motif, select a motif you like from your research images.
- 5). Divide your window size in half in both directions. This will help you center your design. Draw both the horizontal and vertical lines in pencil. Sketch in your design. If your design has curves, then use objects for large curves such as cups or plates. Balance your design so that your shapes match from side to side, or create an asymmetrical design with the design intentionally pushed to one side.
- 6). Draw over your design lines with a thick marker once you are certain a line or change of glass color will look good. Use color pencils to indicate the color of the glass you would like to use in each panel. Also indicate the grain or movement of the glass pattern, since many types of colored glass have a direction of movement. Use a thin marker for lines you are less certain of or may eliminate.
- 7). Sketch several variations of your window on new sheets of tracing paper. Often, moving a single design element will change the appearance of the entire window. It is cheap to design on paper. Once you are finished, tape your tracing paper designs up on plate glass windows at eye viewing height. Think about what you see. If your window is very high in the peak of a third story, a fussy design may be lost. A window right next to the front door will be seen much more than a gable window.
Source...