Chroma Reflected

STAINED GLASS WINDOWS

While traveling in the south of France I visited many early Christian monasteries and churches.  The light, streaming through centuries’ old stained glass windows, infused my being with a feeling of peace and wellness—I lost myself in the light.  

Upon my return, I spent a year searching for a way to achieve such luminescence with oil paint.  Intuitively, it was clear I needed to work on a reflective surface. However the reflective surface presented many technical problems, starting with supporting the fragile aluminum by adhering it to canvas. Next, how to fix oil paint and glass bead medium to aluminum. Which colors?  Which brands?  Extensive testing revealed which oil colors would present transparent on aluminum (surprisingly, some transparent paints become opaque on aluminum). Finally, finding a protective coating that adhered. 

Perseverance produced the happy result—luminescent images that stimulate the viewer’s eye with the slightest variance in lighting and angle of view.