Painting to Match

By sgcjeff on November 9, 2012

Many restoration projects involve recreating a replacement for a shattered or missing piece of glass. Our restoration of windows for St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Rome, Ga involved painting a face to match one shattered by a golf ball, of all things. Here is the broken face.

To reproduce the broken glass, the first thing we do is create a drawing of the face. We use this drawing to paint the facial lines and features onto the glass.

We also have to create paints to match the original skin and hair colors.

Pictured below, we start to apply the flesh tone foundation for the face. Once we finish the painting, the glass paint is permanently melted to the glass inside a kiln heated to approximately 1250’F.

The finished reproduction should match the original in color, tone, and technique.
Most importantly, it should look and feel like it belongs in the original window.