Stained glass is glass with some metals added to create a wide variety of colors. Almost any imaginable color is available or can be produced.

These colored glasses are often available in many different textures -- smooth, wavy, rippled, hammered, pebbled, or very rough. These different textures cause the glass to have light and color transmission characteristics that, even for the same color, can provide surprising results.


Stained glass in Buckfast Abbey, Devon, England. The panel is about 8 metres (26 feet) across. It was designed by the monks who built the abbey.


Example of a stained glass window depicting Mr. Punch. Created by Steve Ignorant


Non-figurative stained glass in the Montreal metro by Marcelle Ferron

Most often these colored glasses are cut into pieces, shaped by grinding and then assembled using lead, zinc, lead cames or copper foil and then soldered together to create windows, panels and/or lamps shades in brilliant patterns and are colorful pictures and designs.

Stained glass is an Art and a Craft that requires the artistic skills necessary to conceive of the design and the engineering skills necessary to assemble the piece so that it is capable of standing up to its own weight and the environmental elements of wind and rain where it may be placed.

See also:
  • Glass mosiac
Hot glass
Glassblowing
Glass bead

And Arts and crafts