Recently, I was donated now unused COVID screens from an office. They are 5mm clear acrylic sheets and are pretty much unscathed from a couple of year’s of use. I returned the favour by making the company a lot of custom engraved acrylic coasters, and started looking round for more things to do with the acrylic. Working with an inspiration pic sent to me, I came up with this project for four different ‘stained glass’ acrylic crosses:

I searched around for some stained glass outlines and adapted them for purpose before cutting out the outlines and stands on my laser cutter. I printed out the outlines, choosing a coloured print out rather than black and white so that when I was tracing, I could easily see where I’d been. Tracing was done with a black porcelain contour pen. I also temporarily tacked the crosses to the print out with removable glue as they kept slipping.

Once that was dry, it was a matter of choosing colours and applying water-based glass paint (easier clean up, and also wipe-off-able if mistakes are made). I found that dabbing the paint on left deliberate brush marks and added to the impression of stained glass. I used a frosted-finish glass paint for some areas, tinting it with the coloured paint where required. Other areas had different thicknesses of application for a variation in transparency and depth of colour. The paint colours mixed nicely, both on palette and on the piece itself (see the contemporary cross with the purple/pink/yellow paint swirled together using a cocktail stick).

The paint, once cured, will resist wiping with a damp cloth to clean. Solvent-based bake-able glass paint would be more robust, but comes with wash-up and fumes drawbacks – particularly when working with groups. The finish is also much more durable than using alcohol inks which I have utilised in previous glass projects.

I’m going to use clear UV resin to ‘glue’ the uprights to the bases – I’ve found this to work well in the past and is a fast way to set everything in the right place/orientation.

Tallest is 20x12cm, with the others being 10cm wide.