Here is a closer image. This was reverse painted on glass with india inks, airbrushed colors, and metal leaf.

 I have had the pleasure of working with Rick Purro and Chris Drehobl of Drehobl Art Glass for many years now.
Drehobl is one of Chicago's oldest stained glass studios and I have been doing painting work for them for quite awhile. I've posted a few photos of some of the projects we did together. In this photo Chris and I are reinstalling a restored panel at St Mary of the Angels Cathedral in Chicago. Rick and Chris did all the work on this one, I just touched up or replaced a few cracked painted pieces.

This is a stained glass panel from a German city state dated 1571! Is that crazy or what? I only painted the one piece of glass that was missing from it, but there is something inconceivably cool about working on a piece that was made almost 400 years before I was born.

Rick Purro came up with the concept of this design, and I painted the dove and branch.

   IAD was asked to paint a mural in the Chicago office of the National Resource Defense Council. They wanted a depiction of an early map by French settlers of the Illinois river.
   Sean, my son and I (the other Sean) went in after office hours and painted the 25 foot ling mural in the course of a week.

Sean painting.

Sean Michael painting.

Finished Wall mural

   2012 is the Chinese Year of the Dragon, so my friends at Orient Cafe in Homer Glen, Illinois commissioned me to do an art piece in my painted glass style.
   Here you can see me in my studio working on cutting the "resist" a rubber mask that goes over the glass. I will then sand carve the glass surface and color fill with metallic colors.

   We had a nice little party to celebrate at the restaurant, which by the way serves phenomenal food and the best egg rolls I ever had.
   Owner Susan Chang and I go way back and we worked along with these old friends who are glass artisans in their own right.
   If you are ever in Homer Glen, stop by the Orient Cafe for great Chinese food and wonderful service.





The final piece is finished below.

I was honored to be asked by the Adler Planetarium to etch the zodiac symbols for their edge lit display on the 14th floor of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the Lurie Childrens Hospital in Chicago. My glass was part of a display which had interactive buttons which lit up the star constellations behind each zodiac figure I etched. 
   The glass panel was about 7 foot tall by about 10 foot wide. We masked the entire sheet and hand cut the images from the vinyl "resist" then etched and artistically shaded each character. This picture shows the beginning of the slow progress.

This is the entire panel with all the stars and characters etched before we removed the vinyl resist.

We have the glass at the location and my son Sean is cleaning and inspecting the design before we install it in the channel that was made for the unit. In the background, electricians are working on installing the lights that will activate the display.

Glass is installed and the glow from the lights edge lighting are seen on Sagittarius.




Below is the final finished display!

   This window was made by Kathy Kleinfeldt of Heritage Stained Glass Studios in Morris, Illinois. I had the pleasure of working with Kathy painting replacement pieces of various restoration projects for her studio. In December of 2011 she came to me with an interesting project. The church wanted a new stained glass window painted in the old world style. I referenced a painting of the immaculate conception by artist Estiban Perez Murillo.
   The window was restored with the old border glass intact but with a new illustrated center, along with a dove symbolizing the Holy Spirit and a family name dedication banner.