Sue Kinley has shared another great family art activity to try, creating a stained glass design (without any glass!). These can be created inspired by the sights, colours and wildlife of the Penwith landscape - an aim of our Seeing the Landscape project.
You will need:
Coloured tissue paper cut up into larger and smaller pieces, scissors, a felt/marker pen, PVA glue, white A4 paper, A4 sheet of acetate or a piece of recycled transparent plastic, old paint brush, jar, sellotape.
1. Draw a design on A4 white paper using dark lines.You can print out the designs here for a butterfly and a bauble if you would like to use them. Larger shapes are easier to make! Lay a sheet of acetate or transparent recycled plastic over the drawing, attaching with a couple of pieces of sellotape at the top. Younger children might like to just try overlapping colours without a drawing.
2. Mix 2 parts PVA glue to 1 part water in your jar. Using your paintbrush [a small flat one works well] apply a thin layer of glue over a section of the drawing. Stick overlapping pieces of tissue over each section and experiment with colours. Don’t worry about going over the outside edge of the design, this will be cut out later.
3. When your tissue stained glass is completely dry, carefully draw the outlines of each shape with a sharpie type marker pen over the top, following the drawing underneath.
4. Detach the acetate from the paper drawing underneath, and cut out the circle with scissors. If no drawing, you can cut out any shape you like. You could also put on a final thicker layer of PVA, which dries clear, as a varnish. Your stained glass artwork is now ready to put on the window – stick on with some small pieces of sellotape folded back on itself.
Try your own designs – I based the butterfly on photographs of a Small Pearl Bordered Fritillary taken during the 
summer in West Penwith. Patterns, shapes and colours from birds, moths, butterflies and flowers work well. See how many local species you can identify near where you live, or out walking in West Cornwall throughout the year.
