Three Diamonds

Having boarded the three sides of the gazebo that face the neighbouring garden, I decided that we needed to decorate them… Much of the fencing around our garden is a diamond pattern, so I thought it might be nice to copy that for the new windows. Window number one is based on a colour palette generated by the glass I had on the shelf! The design is a series of intersecting arcs and was fun to build.

The frame was built from pitch pine recovered from window frames in our house (another excuse to get lots of power tools out and make a mess!). The joinery is not award-winning but it works and fits in well with my rustic gazebo…

For window number two I sketched out a tree-of-life design and then spent lots of time re-drawing and adjusting until I was happy with the proportions and balance. The border of this window is the clear reeded glass that reflects colours so well. The palette used for the tree is restricted to four different glasses with variations in each sheet used to give a little more interest.

Finally, the design for window three was based on the diamond that forms the overall shape. I decided to go for ‘hot’ colours from yellow to deep red. As always, I coloured a design to give me a guide before I went to the glass dealer (in this case, Kansa Craft). Given the costs of some of the glass (reds and purples can be very expensive because precious metals are used in the mix to create the colour) there is a need, as a hobbyist, to purchase only what is needed. I found a sheet of orange/yellow glass that would allow me to get a lovely graduation from the centre of the design. The other sheets of the ‘same’ glass were a much more uniform orange so it pays to buy in person if you can.