Wall Feature Case Study

Sea inspired wall art with wow factor

The setting

I was approached by a local couple who were having a contemporary kitchen extension built to their seaside home. They were looking for a wall art feature to give their new space the ‘wow factor’, and they knew that they wanted a sea theme. Having seen examples of my work online the clients felt I could create something in the style they were looking for.

The brief

I invited the clients to come and visit me at the Studio so we could discuss initial ideas, and also look at some of my existing work in person.

With a large area to work with they were attracted to the idea of a feature comprising individual sections, and we settled on the concept of a sweeping oceanic theme full of movement, using lots of ocean blues, aquas and greens, with some swishes of orange, yellow and reds. 

Sketches

My first step is always to sketch out ideas which I discuss with the client, and the design then develops as I listen to what they do or don’t like.

Initially the design idea was based on playful dolphin-like forms with a large crashing wave, and this evolved to simpler wave forms as shown in the final sketch below.

Visualisation

I always create glass samples to show clients the proposed colours and textures I will use in the artwork, but with larger commissions I will sometimes take this a step further and create a maquette of the design to help them visualise it in-situ. For this project I mocked up a model of the kitchen and made a miniature scale version of the proposed artwork in glass:

Full steam ahead

With the clients pleased with this final design, I was free to go ahead and create the artwork. With several component pieces, this took a number of weeks and kiln firings.

Once everything was made, the clients came to the Studio to see everything laid out before I began the assembly. We discussed a tweak to one of the colours so I re-made one of the sections.

The end result

For extra strength I laminated the five largest glass forms to 6mm toughened glass, which had been specially fabricated to my specification from templates I created.

Installation was carried out over two days and I’m pleased to say that the clients were very happy with the finished effect.

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How to get in touch

If you are considering a possible architectural glass commission, please get in touch at studio@vividglassart.co.uk to arrange a no-obligation discussion with me.