Commission Work: ‘Ritz’ – Private Commission for Mark Barclay, London
I was contacted recently to do a Private Commission glass-painting for Mark Barclay in London. Mark had just bought a terraced house and wanted a glass-painting of his late Siamese cat ‘Ritz’ to sit above his front door. I designed the graphic below to show my initial idea.
Green light…
Mark gave the green light for the work to commence and I purchased the glass and printed out the template to sit underneath the new glass. The work is approximately 60cm by 90cm. It took 6 sheets of A3 paper to get the image to fit the dimensions!
To Air-Brush in the sky…
I blanked out all but the sky initially, only to find that my air brush was broken. I ordered a new one and then had to get on with doing something else instead, so I lifted the bottom section up and set to adding the green areas to get at least something done whilst I waited for the new air brush to arrive.
As soon as I’d slapped on some leading and paint…
Mark e-mailed at just the right moment. There was a slight change to the brief. It was no longer necessary to have the house number on the glass painting, so I altered the design slightly to take out the 22. Whilst I waited for my new air brush I made good progress on the green panels.
Some green and some blue…
Once the air brush had arrived I was able to get the sky sprayed in. I was really excited, not just because I was using my new super funky air brush, but also because I was using a special frosted blue glass paint to give a more interesting colour and texture.
With the sky in place…
Once the sky had been sprayed in I could remove all the masking tape and paper and start to see the glass-painting develop. I painted in the sun, had finished the sky and the green panels and then had to turn my attention to the main meow-man, ‘Ritz’.
‘Ritz’, your painting awaits you…
To get the right level of colour for Ritz I decided to air brush him in too. (OK, so secretly I just wanted to do some more air brushing because I had a new toy!). This is the first couple of coats to build up the light areas of his fur.
And, the meow-man starts to take is place…
So, I’ve reached the point where Ritz is in place, but by all accounts is still naked! Part of the brief included having his name in the picture. It was suggested that it could be on his collar, but even at 60 by 90 cm that was going to be a squeeze. I put my thinking cap on…
And this is what I came up with…
Although Ritz is only a 4-letter name, the width of the collar was not going to make his name stand out. I decided that as he is still a YouTube superstar (just search for Ritz on YouTube and you’ll find him) he needed a superstar collar. His name dangles from a pillar-box red collar, attached by solid silver!
A labour of love…
The final work was delivered to Mark on Saturday 17th April, 2010
I’m featuring this glass-painting on my blog, firstly because I’m delighted with the final work, but also because doing it has been a total labour of love. I’m a cat-lover myself, and having seen Ritz on YouTube, he truly deserves his role of welcoming visitors to the house, even posthumously. Thank You Mark for choosing the White Rose Craft Studio to do this Private Commission piece for you… It has been an honour and an absolute delight.
‘Ritz’ in situ…
Filed under: Arts & Crafts Tagged: | air brush, frosted blue glass paint, glass painting, interesting colour and texture, Private Commission glass-painting, Siamese cat 'Ritz', White Rose Craft Studio, YouTube superstar
