Stained Glass

Ironically––this post about a church's stained glass windows was already scheduled before last week's post about my childhood church burning down and the lost beauty inside it...

Last October for our wedding anniversary, I drew the stained glass window Julia and I were married under in 2003.
(19 years and counting!)

I gave Julia the original inked artwork as a gift, but decided to color it just for fun (though I have been tempted to make stickers of it).

Below is a few steps of process for (re)creating the art for her.

Here's a photo of us that day and a better look at the window. We were married in the First Methodist Church in Ypsilanti, MI (where we both went to EMU). 

When looking for a church to get married in, Julia and I attended one of their services to see if the Pastor & setting felt right to us. I think the woodwork and stained glass are a big part of why we opted for it.

Most of the photos I had of the window left the lead-work blown out. But I was able to find one from that day and a few more online that gave me a clear view of each section.

I printed out the clearest version I had of that photo and on my light pad I placed the printout and covered it with a sheet of Strathmore 300 bristol. 

Using a Copic Multiliner SP pen or two (the 0.7 & 0.3 nibs) I traced over each bit of the design--sometimes adding in little broken & repaired bits for character.

I did miss a few of the lead lines, but I drew them in digitally when I was coloring the file.

With the inks scanned (and the original gifted to Julia as we had a nice dinner in together) I eventually started the coloring process called 'flatting'. It's a professional version of coloring-in-the-lines basically. And I used the eyedropper tool in Photoshop to get the colors as close to the real window as possible (though constantly making little adjustments for myself artistically)

For the final colors below, I added a bit of texture and tinted each individual piece of glass just a bit one way or the other compared to its neighbor so they all looked like separate pieces. I also added a color hold over all the lead to suggest light poring through the glass and blowing out the darkest darks to our eyes.

Would you want a 4" sticker/decal of this window? Let me know––enough people ask and I'll make it happen.