Enjoy Your Home More with Stained Glass Window Art

You can add stained glass art anywhere you want. Personally, I prefer a bright, sunny window. Did I mention the way I love seeing colors dancing around a room when the sun shines through stained glass? The movement of the sun through the sky creates a constantly changing cascade of color throughout the room.

Catching the sun isn't the only reason for decorating with stained glass, though. If you have a window that is a little too exposed to prying eyes, hanging stained glass in that window is an effective way to reduce what outside eyes can see, while giving your home additional curb value, too!

Hanging stained glass in an overly exposed window is a far more attractive way of adding privacy. Let's face it. Which would be more satisfying for you to look at year after year? Drapes, shades, or blinds that are merely functional in providing privacy? Or stained glass that turns your window into a work of art?

Another place to consider decorating with stained glass is any window that has a less-than thrilling view. Do you have a window that has a "thrilling" view of a blank wall, an ugly fence, or the washed out backside of somebody's garage? Which would look better? That existing view? Or a vibrant piece of stained glass art? I thought so.

Click here if you want to find out more about the dragonflies and water lilies stained glass panel pictured above.

Talking about stained glass art can be a little confusing. What kind of stained glass do we mean?

When looking for stained glass, you have a choice between stained glass made with two different techniques. You have traditional stained glass, and you have painted stained glass.

Let's look at each of them below.

Traditional stained glass has the color mixed into the glass while it's still in its molten state. The color goes through and through. The stained glass artist creates the design much as a mosaic artist creates a design out of tile. The artist cuts pieces out of various colors of glass and joins them using strips of lead or copper foil.

Lead strips (commonly called "cames") are what you see used to join pieces of stained glass into designs in the grand cathedrals. Glass artists use copper foil more commonly today. This copper foil technique was first popularized by legendary stained glass artist Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose name is associated with this this style of stained glass to this day.

The glass itself may be solid color. Or it may have swirls of different shades running through it for a dramatic effect.

If you have traditional tastes, this style likely will appeal to you. It has a greater feel of substance, texture, and elegance. And nothing can compare with the richness of sunlight streaming through glass whose color is embedded through and through!

This traditional style stained glass is, however, far more labor intensive of the two choices. As such, it is also more expensive. Look for words like "Tiffany style," "leaded," "copper foil," or references to how many pieces of glass went into the making of a piece of stained glass art if you are determined to settle for nothing less than the Rolls Royce of stained glass artwork.

Click here if you want to see more information about the lovely example of traditional style of stained glass art pictured above.

Let me get one thing straight before we start. Hand-painting stained glass is not some new, cut-rate alternative to the traditional way of making stained glass.

Artists have incorporated hand-painting into their stained glass masterpieces for almost as long as they have made stained glass in the traditional style. How else could they incorporate delicate details, such as faces, into their designs?

With hand-painting, special lacquers are painted onto the surface of clear or colored glass. Then the glass is reheated to fuse the lacquers permanently into the glass.

So, if this technique has been used by stained glass artists for centuries, why the distinction between traditional and hand-painted? The reason is that, in recent years, many stained glass artists have increased their use of hand-painting to achieve their designs.

They still piece together different colors of glass to an extent. They don't do it as extensively as traditional artists do, though.

Where traditional stained glass artists might piece together dozens of small pieces of glass to achieve some delicate effect, many modern stained glass artists use paint on a larger piece of glass to achieve the same effect. The result can be no less beautiful. They simply create it at a lower cost, that they pass on to their buyers.

You'll find stained glass art that used a high degree of hand painting to be more affordable than art that relies primarily on leading or copper foil techniques. You'll also find them to have more delicate shading and detail. Notice the detail on the fur of the cat pictured above. To get a better look at the detail you may want to see this stained glass cat on a page where you can access a larger image of it. Sunlight streaming through hand-painted glass is not as vibrant, but still produces a pleasant glow.

Overall, the choice between traditional and hand-painted stained glass art is a choice between greater elegance on one side versus lower price and greater detail on the other.

Many people don't realize how many types of subjects you can find in stained glass. The subjects that artists capture in stained glass go far beyond just religious, symbolic, or abstract designs.

Lighthouses, ships, flowers, birds, wildlife, cats, horses -- you can find just about any subject that touches your heart. You can even find specialty pieces to honor Mom or Dad or those who serve in the military.

You can see some of my personal favorites below. Or browse through nearly 100 stained glass designs that I've assembled for your enjoyment.

Hopefully, you've enjoyed me sharing my passion for stained glass art here. If you have, let me know below through the interactive modules for sharing, for giving feedback, or for showing your appreciation of this lens.

And, by all means, browse through the stained glass art I've gathered into my 1st Choice Gifts and Decor store. I have nearly 100 artworks there for you to enjoy -- and maybe even to add to your home!