Family Photographs & Handwriting Engraved on Glass

Some commissions begin with a clearly defined object. Others begin with the material that has survived generations.

For this piece, the starting point was a collection of family photographs and handwritten memories belonging to two grandparents. The finished frame brings those elements together through archival print and engraving on glass, allowing the original photographs and handwriting to remain distinct parts of the composition.

  • Original vintage family photograph supplied for the engraved glass frame commission
  • Original handwritten family account used as source material for the glass engraving
  • Archival family history record from County Cavan used as source material for the commission
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Why We Accepted the Commission

This was an unusual commission for Engraved Glass Design because it brought together several different disciplines within the studio.

My own background includes professional photography as well as design, while John has more than 35 years' experience in sandblast engraving. The proposed piece required all three.
The original family photographs needed to be assessed, prepared and printed. Handwritten material had to be selected and incorporated into a coherent composition. Finally, that composition had to be designed around the practical requirements of engraving onto the glass in front of the printed image.

That combination was what made the commission particularly interesting. It gave us an opportunity to bring skills that normally sit within different parts of our work together in a single finished piece.

  • Original vintage family photograph before photographic preparation and recomposition
  • Prepared family photograph after removing a figure and recomposing the original image
  • Family photographs being prepared and composed in Photoshop for the engraved glass frame
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From Family Material to a Composition

The starting material was wonderfully personal, but it had never been created with a finished framed composition in mind.

The two family photographs differed in age, colour, composition and proportions. The handwritten material contained considerably more text than could comfortably be incorporated into an A4 piece.

Part of the design process was deciding what could be retained, what required careful preparation and how these separate elements could sit together as a coherent whole.

The photographs required considerably more than resizing for print. Each was worked on individually before the two were brought together within the final composition.

One of the original photographs was a wide family scene showing three people. The finished composition required a much tighter portrait of two. The third figure was carefully removed, the surrounding area reconstructed and the photograph recomposed around the remaining figures.

Colour and tonal adjustments were then made across both photographs. Because the originals had very different characteristics, this work continued once they were brought together within the same file, allowing them to be judged alongside one another as part of the finished composition.

None of this work was intended to make the photographs look new. The aim was to prepare them for their new setting while retaining the character of the original family photographs.

The handwritten material presented a different challenge.

One account recalled childhood in Medicine Hat, Canada. The other described a family home in the townland of Killynanum in County Cavan, including its thick mud walls and the fact that it had remained in the family for six generations.

Only selected passages could be used. Those passages then had to retain the character of the original handwriting while being arranged at a scale and position suitable for engraving onto glass.

The handwriting became part of the composition itself, designed in relation to the photographs that would eventually sit behind it.

  • Approved design layout combining family photographs and handwriting for the bespoke glass frame
  • Print colour tests used to refine the dark green background for the archival photograph composition
  • Printed family photographs positioned in the frame to align the handwriting engraving on the glass
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Preparing the Print

Once the composition had been resolved, attention moved from the screen to the physical print.

The photographs were prepared and printed in the studio on archival paper, but colour became an unexpectedly important part of this stage.

The design uses a muted dark green background. Getting that green to reproduce correctly on paper required testing.

An ICC colour profile for the paper and printer was downloaded and tested first. Technically correct did not, in this instance, produce the result we wanted. The resulting print was noticeably too cold for the composition.
Small test strips were therefore printed as the colour was adjusted, allowing the green to be judged on the actual paper alongside the photographs.

It became a process of trial, comparison and adjustment until the physical print produced the result we were looking for.

It was also a useful reminder that the colour visible on a monitor is only one stage of the process. For a piece that ultimately exists as a physical object, the final judgement has to be made from the physical materials themselves.

Bringing Print and Engraving Together

With the final print completed, it was placed temporarily into the frame.

This is an important part of the production process because Johnny can work from the assembled piece to establish the precise relationship between the printed composition and the handwriting that will be engraved onto the glass.

The photographs and handwriting occupy two different physical planes. The print sits behind the glass, while the handwriting is engraved into its surface.

Their alignment therefore has to be considered as part of one object.

Once that relationship has been established, the print is removed again. The glass can then be prepared for sandblast engraving using the approved artwork without risking the printed material beneath it.

  • Engraving mask being prepared over the framed photographic composition
  • Engraving mask being prepared for sandblast engraving of the original handwriting
  • Original family handwriting being sandblast engraved onto the glass
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Engraving the Handwriting

Reproducing handwriting through engraving has its own technical requirements.

The character of the original hand needs to remain recognisable, including the variations that make handwriting individual, while the artwork itself has to be capable of being cut, masked and successfully sandblasted.

Once the engraving mask has been prepared and positioned, the handwriting is sandblasted into the glass.

Only after the glass has been engraved and checked can the printed composition return to the frame for final assembly.

  • Original family handwriting being quality checked after sandblast engraved onto the glass
  • Close detail of original family handwriting reproduced as engraving on glass
  • Family photographs and original handwriting combined in a bespoke engraved glass frame
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The Finished Piece

Once reassembled, the photographs remain behind the glass while the original handwriting occupies its surface.

There is also a subtle consequence of that physical separation.

Depending on the direction of the light, the engraved handwriting can cast a slight shadow onto the printed background beneath it. The words and photographs appear together while remaining physically distinct.

That relationship between photograph, print, glass and handwriting is ultimately what the commission required us to resolve.

What began as separate photographs and handwritten records has become a single composition, while the character of the original material remains visible within it.

From the Family Archive

Working on this commission also raised a broader idea.

Many of us have a box, drawer or envelope containing the things that somehow survived.

Old photographs. Handwritten notes. Postcards. Greetings cards. Concert tickets. Travel tickets. Invitations. Programmes. Children's drawings. Pieces of paper that have remained with us for years because they belong to a particular person, place or moment.

There are interesting possibilities in bringing some of those materials together.

A photograph can remain a photograph. A ticket, card or other piece of personal ephemera could form part of a printed composition. A few words taken from a handwritten letter could appear as engraving on the glass above it.

It is an idea we intend to deelop further in the studio.

Have something you would like us to explore? If you have a place, achievement or piece of personal history you would like to explore in glass, we can help you consider the source material, format and possibilities for the engraving.

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