Liquid Or Powder: Which Gum Arabic Is Best?

We prefer liquid: here’s why

Gum Arabic isn’t essential. (Patrick Reyntiens, for example, barely uses it at all.) It’s just that, without it, our dried, unfired paint would be extremely fragile.

Also, we would not be able to shade and matt as we want to – that is, all in one firing, including oil-based paint on top.

Now stained glass painting stockists mainly stock gum Arabic in powdered form.

But I prefer the liquid, and here is why:

  1. Liquid is far easier to mix in than powder when you first prepare your basic lump.
  2. When you need (as you sometimes will) to adjust the adhesive strength of your paint, you’ll again see that liquid gum Arabic is far easier to mix than powder.
  3. To use powder, it’s best to mix it first with – water … Now when you buy liquid, you know the adhesive strength is evenly distributed throughout the solution (which it’s difficult for you to know when you mix it up yourself), so that’s one more problem taken care of for you.

Liquid gum Arabic is the same medium that water-colour painters use.

So just find a good supplier of traditional art materials, and they will help you.

Ours is made by Winsor & Newton.

Stained glass painting - liquid gum Arabic is easier to work with than gum Arabic in powdered form

Stained glass painting – liquid gum Arabic is easier to work with than gum Arabic in powdered form

Best,

David Williams of Williams & Byrne, the glass painters