J2 Reverse Bang 2023 - STAINED GLASS LOVE - Artpost

My second J2 Reserve Bang. A huge thank you to the moderators who make this challenge possible every year. I was over the moon when the talented author candygramme claimed my submitted artwork. She wrote the wonderful modern love story "STAINED GLASS LOVE", which contains everything a reader's heart desires. Suspense, action, friendship, love, romance, happy endings and, of course, Cat. Inspired by this, the ideas for further works of art kept flowing.
The collaboration with candygramme was great. We had so much fun and enjoyed working on story and art together. This resulted in many more artworks and a longer story than initially thought. I will miss our almost daily emails, the lively and successful exchange of ideas, the beta work.
🥰 Many, many thanks for the great collaboration, dear candygramme. Thank you for this wonderful creative time. 😘 I very much hope that we will work together again in the future. 🤗

Art Title: LEAD GLASS LOVE

Prompt Number: 11

Artist: aomasade [AomaSade on AO3]

Fic Title: STAINED GLASS LOVE

Author: candygramme [candygramme on AO3]

Fandom/Genre: SPN/RPS, Romance

Pairing: Jared Padalecki/Jensen Ackles

Rating: NC-17

Word Count: ~37,000

Warnings: None

Summary: Patron of the arts and multimillionaire Jared Padalecki has set up a foundation to promote art and grow young artists. Stained glass artist Jensen Ackles can't stand arrogant rich assholes and just knows that Jared is a player. For Jared, it's love at first sight, but Jensen blows him off. However, when Jensen is suddenly in trouble, he accepts Jared's offer of help to overcome his difficulties, just so long as he can pay him back, and Jared finally gets the chance to convince the stubborn artist of his qualities.

Masterpost on J2 Reverse Bang Challenge

Art: AO3

Fic: LiveJournal | AO3

Glass portrait Jared

Glass portrait Jensen

Stained glass artist Jensen in front of the rose window in St. Bartholomew's Church

Jared in front of his glass portrait

Cat catching mice

Cat with monarch butterflies

Cat with Texas brown tarantula

Cat with western rat snake

Cat with frog

Rose window in St. Bartholomew's Church

Press photo: Jensen in front of the rose window in St. Bartholomew's Church

Press photo: Auction

Press photo: Sadie the rockhopper penguin in Moody Gardens

Press photo: Surprise gift

Mermaid stained glass window

Kudzu with beetles

Penguin art

Wedding location Cottonland Castle

Art Description: Patron of the arts and multimillionaire Jared Padalecki likes to promote exceptional artists. Lead glass artist Jensen Ackles can't stand arrogant rich assholes who hand out handouts disguised as sponsorship. Jared blows him off several times. When Jensen suddenly needs money, he accepts Jared's commission to design a leaded glass window for his mansion. And Jared finally gets the chance to convince the stubborn artist of his qualities.

Stained glass art or glass painting has always fascinated me. As I like to try out new drawing styles, I have looked at many pictures of people in stained glass in order to depict Jared in a different way. This craft technique is over a thousand years old. Large window areas, especially for sacred buildings, could not be produced in the Middle Ages. This meant that the glassmakers only had the option of producing small panes of glass and framing and soldering them using lead rods. Today, it's not just church windows, but a whole world of stained glass. Very motivated, I started painting Jared in stained glass. I have yet to read a J2 story about this art form. I thought maybe there would be an author who is just as fascinated and would like to write about glass artist Jensen and patron Jared. That's how my picture ended up at J2 RB 2023.

This was my first foray into the world of stained glass. Jensen makes Jared's picture with real glass and lead rods, so the individual pieces of glass couldn't be too small. The rose looks a bit fleshy and the textured glass effect isn't quite right either. But candygramme saw my potential and claimed my artwork and took up my ideas for a story. This laid the foundation for a great collaboration.

In the story, everything revolves around glass art. So the art for the story should also be stained glass. I reworked Jared's glass portrait. His hair was given soft waves. The background now consists of bright dark blue pieces of glass. Everything was framed with a light blue frame. Then I added a realistic textured glass effect. The red lettering and the romantic roses made of floral glass set accents.
Funnily enough, the black and white contour pictures look like small ice sculptures. But ice sculptors (ice artists, ice carvers) are not the subject this time. But I'll keep the idea in mind. Each "piece of glass" in all the stained glass pictures had to be worked on individually. First, the pieces were colored and later underlaid with different textured glass textures.

Equal rights for both main characters. So Jensen also received a glass portrait. The J2s in the story are both about 29 years old. They don't wear beards, my author and I agreed on that.

I used both glass portraits to create the banner and the happy ending picture. Jensen surprises Jared with both pictures after their honeymoon. They decorate the patio double doors in their new house.

In the press photo, Jared and Jensen are shown standing in front of them, smiling happily into the camera. Drawing people in this style is difficult and takes a lot of time. But the effort is worth it if you like the result.

As Jared and Jensen had turned out so well, I also drew a second Jared and designed another cover to match the happy ending image. I had the idea at the very beginning, but I didn't really trust myself to draw Jared and Jensen realistically.

I wanted to draw Jensen when Jared sees him for the first time and falls in love. The glass artist is immersed in ethereal light, colored light reflections dance on his skin. I originally had a church with leaded arched windows in mind as the background. The round window was an idea from candygramme. I looked at many motifs of window rosettes (also known as rose windows), which are mainly found in Gothic churches. I decided on a floral motif in blue-green tones with reddish accents. First I drew the contours of the window. Then I colored everything. Finally, I added a textured glass effect as well as light and shadow. The sun doesn't illuminate the church window evenly because there are houses and trees in front of the church.

Jensen looks uncomfortably into the press cameras, as he doesn't like being in the spotlight. As always, I drew the outlines first and filled them in with color. I started with the trousers, then the shirt, t-shirt face and arms and finally the hair. I chose a realistic drawing style so that Jensen and the color rays and reflections would stand out particularly well.

Based on this description and a sketch by candygramme, I drew Jensen's mermaid window. A mermaid on a rock, which is washed by waves with sea foam, watches dolphins in the evening sun. I replaced the porpoises with funny dolphins jumping out of the water. Porpoises almost never jump out of the water. Dolphins have been known since ancient times to save people time and time again. So they were better suited to the swimming pool. I added a rectangular decorative frame with shimmering shells and starfish to the oval picture.

My author candygramme had the idea of writing newspaper articles to highlight events. To make it easier for the reader to follow the course of events over time, I suggested creating newspaper clippings with the logo of the newspaper and linking the publication date to the plot.

In this way, two articles could be included in one clipping, both of which had to do with the current plot. So I designed the Austin Tribune and its offshoot, the Houston Tribune. The blue newspaper name and the flag bring color into the picture, because the articles are designed in black and white, as is usual for daily newspapers.

The main article of the respective newspaper clipping should always contain a photo. But just a picture of the cat book would not embody an auction. That's when I came up with the idea of gloved hands holding an auction item. So I drew four hands with dark blue suit sleeves and white gloves presenting a book.

We needed a second article for the third newspaper clipping. Moody Gardens or the Space Center were obvious choices because the group visits both destinations. The idea to do an article about the painting penguins in the aquarium came from candygramme. I chose the rockhopper penguin with its colorful headdress that was making a painting.

Jensen's cat Cat, whose full name is Her Majesty Tsarina Catherine II, Queen Cat or affectionately known as Queenie, is the secret star of the story. She keeps everyone on their toes with her hilarious antics.

That's what gave me the idea for the chapter headings in glass art. Five pictures show Cat hunting, sunbathing and at night. Because glass art can be viewed and admired from both sides, the cat picture and its symmetrical image (mirror-inverted) can be seen. To further distinguish the individual chapters, and because glass art stands for a variety of colors, I have chosen five different color combinations. Everything was designed with the same textured glass texture as the cover.

The chapter numbers have the same red color and floral glass texture as the headings on the cover and banner. So everything fits together. The uniform art set of cover, banner and chapter headings frames and decorates the story from beginning to end.

There's also an ending chapter heading with Cat and King. Metaphorically, it could also be Jensen and Jared, with the taller one stealing a kiss. Candygramme had the idea with the bow tie. A humorous reminder of the wedding speech.

The choice of bow tie colors made the decision difficult, but in the end my author chose the color red to match the red of the lettering.

To further emphasize the uniformity, I opted for dividers that are coordinated with the chapter headings. Leaves, flowers, shape, stars and branches as well as the color palette merge into smaller equivalents. This way, the reader knows that they are still in the same chapter. Or they can find their way around more easily later if they are looking for a particular passage to read again.

To break up the story - for a little laugh in between - I drew a few more cat pictures. Cat hunts mice, rats, butterflies, snakes, frogs, lizards and spiders. She likes to scare Donna Ackles, who gets very upset and complains to Jensen about her prey.

For visually impaired or foreign language speakers who rely on screen readers, voice browsers or translation programs, texts in image files are incomprehensible as they cannot be read digitally with these assistive programs. I therefore suggested providing the newspaper articles as text in a glossary. At the same time, further terms or details about the story can also be explained. To liven up the whole glossary, I drew a few pictures such as the kudzu plant, penguin footprints and Cottonland Castle. If you look closely, you can see that the chapter heading "Glossary" has a 3D effect. The red letters stand out against the dark blue background and float above it.

I drew the artwork with Procreate on my iPad Pro.

I hope you enjoyed my artpost.