There are few art forms in the world that have the mystique of stained glass. If you travel around the world, you will see breathtaking examples of stained glass throughout the world. In churches, beautiful homes, and national monuments there are so many examples of the possiblities of this wonderful art form. Fortunately, this art form has stood the test of time as many artists continue to tradition of creating spectacular art pieces. Most folks are very intimidated when getting started in stained glass. After all, there is sharp glass and cutting involved, but its really not that difficult, even for a beginner. Here's whats required for a basic project.

One of the first thing you need to create something wonderful is the stained glass itself! If you want the best and most popular, you will want to go with Spectrum Stained Glass. It's the most widely used glass and with good reason, it's quality and is easy to work with. It really doesn't matter if you're looking for blue or red, smooth or rough rolled, Spectrum has what you need and the color you need it in. One of the neat advantages to working with Spectrum is that as your skills progress, you might begin using your own stained glass patterns. Most software programs are loaded with Spectrum glass built in so you can design your piece, see it on paper, and then go out and buy the glass if you like it. Its like seeing a preview.

The next tool you'll likely need is a quality stained glass cutting tool. The name is somewhat misleading because the tool doesn't do the actual cutting, it only scores the glass which you will break eventually. The amount of money you can spend on stained glass cutting tools varies widely, you can spend a little for a basic one or a lot for a more specialized cutting tools. The traditional cutting tools will be ok for basically any job, but there are speciality ones for glass strips, to cut circles, or to trace stained glass patterns.

One useful tool that I would recommend as you advance through the hobby is a stained glass grinders. There are a number of grinders available for beginners that start at around fifty dollars or so. The grinder smooths out rough edges after you've made the cut and this allows you to shape the piece. While by no means at all is it absolutely necessary to pick up an expensive grinder, most artist find that they like to invest in one early on since it makes the jobs so much easier.

Other than those tools, there are some minor supplies that you probably want to grab when you progress. The best recommendation I can make is to purchase a starters stained glass kit and that will give you all the small tools you need to get started. Once you start getting a little farther down the stained glass artist road, you can check out some cool tools like the ones that are put out by Morton Glass Works. Morton makes tools that make the life of a stained glass artist just a little bit easier. So there you go.Sometimes when you look up at all the amazing glass produced by stained glass artists it's easy to get intimidated, always remember though that every needs to start at the beginning and as long as you keep practicing, then you will improve!