******
- Verified Buyer
I'm an artist and a designer who decided I wanted to try my hand at creating stained glass for a change. I took a couple of classes to learn the basic technical aspects of working with glass, the cutter, the foil and the soldering iron. Then I decided I needed a book to read on the subject, to keep as a tool for future reference. I checked on Amazon but found so many different stained glass books, I decided to check the library before buying one.I found three different books there: "Stained Glass Basics" by Rich, Mitchell, Ward; "The Stained Glass Classroom" by Payne, and "How to Work With Stained Glass", third edition by Isenberg. I'm 'old-fashioned'. I like to do 'hands on' with books before I buy them, since I tend to purchase many books. That's what the library is for. I check them out, read through them, see 'up close' what's in the books and then, if I really like them, order them. If not, I haven't wasted my money."Stained Glass Basics" by Rich, Mitchell, Ward is the best, followed closely by "The Stained Glass Classroom" by Payne. "The Stained Glass Classroom" is really a beginners book with very simple easy to do projects, patterns, directions and overall good information. Just enough to whet your appetite for stained glass without being too complex. Both are in full color with plenty of closeup pictures to illustrate the information, showing the tools used, projects to make using the line drawings for patterns and measurements, a list of what is needed for each and full page color pictures of the finished pieces.Additionally, "Stained Glass Basics" has a plethora of black and white line drawings showing various storage stands for tools and equipment that can be made to assist you in the process of creating works of art in stained glass. "Basics" shows full color pictures in the back of all the various larger more complex projects that can be created by a more advanced person, once they have learned the basics. It is loaded with full color pictures of more designer oriented completed projects, both by the authors and by a number of highly skilled stained glass artists, who they give thanks and credit to listed in the back of the book. There are simple and advanced projects along with the line drawings and measurements included so you can reproduce these using a wide variety of glass, and other objects to incorporate into your selected design.The only problem that I had with "Basics" is the typefont is small and printed in grey rather than in black, making the type font difficult to read. But the information is better laid out with both techniques and projects for beginners as well as techniques and project to use for more advanced users. After taking my last class and after checking out all three of these books, I ordered the "Stained Glass Basics" by Rich, Mitchell, Ward, to use as my primary reference. For me, it gives me all the information I wanted both for a follow-up for the basics as well as ideas for making my own equipment for greater expansion of creativity in my studio. It gives me directions and ideas for more complex designs, Technical Tips which are invaluable, working with both foil and came, working with nuggets, leading grids, working with smooth soldering beads on heavily textured glass, incorporating found objects in my work, etc."Stained Glass Basics" is simply my book of choice which I will keep handy as my 'go to' book for all my stained glass work.As for 'How To Work In Stained Glass" by Isenberg, it is very dated going back to 1972. It uses only 16 full color pages showing old examples of work, produced years ago, in stained glass, which, by the vary nature of stained glass, is not going to do anything visually to inspire the reader to take on the process of learning how to create stained glass or understand the topic. Color sells and people don't learn about stained glass by looking at small, old, dated black and white poorly reproduced photos. The book contains some history on the art of stained glass, though it does not go back beyond the Gothic Age, 12th-14th century and stained glass was used long before this, historically. It gives an overview of 'all things stained glass' and includes some brief paragraghs on the Victorian Period and the Tiffany Era, but says or gives nothing more than passing mention about Tiffany, LaFarge or Durand, all very famous stained glass artists of their time. The book is technically written and literally covers all things glass, including dichroic glass, drawings of every size and shape of lead came along with the names and forms and measurements, how to fit the lead came stained glass window into its position, even includes information on the use of carbon paper in layers for making your copies, which is a clear indication of the age of this publication. It gives you step-by-step detailed instruction for making lamps, but again, only using small black and white photos. It discusses painting on glass, the basic equipment needed by an artist who is painting on the stained glass, formulas, etc, along with line drawings and patterns of a couple of religious figures that can be dublicated. It is complex in its details of instructions, difficult to interpret in many cases, unless you are a highly skilled glass crafts person. The photography is of no help because, again, it is so poorly done. I was not impressed. Unless I had the time to sit down and put a great deal of time and energy into just studying this book to the exclusion of everything else, I would not purchase it or recommend it.
