Stained Glass Painting with A Pen

In Part 2 of Glass Painting Techniques & Secrets from an English Stained Glass Studio, you discover an amazing technique for painting with oil-based stained glass paint on top of unfired – note this: unfired – water-based paint.

This is the exact technique we use each day to achieve a particular sense of depth and contrast in our work.

That’s the point about the information you get from us: it’s all tried and tested to the limit.

Sure, there’s always more to learn.

But what you learn with us is excellent and true.

Now this particular technique involves oil and brush.

Stained glass fighting bird in oil with nib by Williams & Byrne, designers, painters and restorers of stained glass

Stained glass fighting bird in oil with nib

But have a look at this sample piece of painted stained glass.

This is the very piece which caught Penny’s eye when she took time off from the front-line of our National Health Service – leaving the nation at the mercy of Swine Flu – while she spent a weekend with us at Stanton Lacy.

And what a stained glass painting course that was.

A time when people meet each other and immediately know that they will meet again.

Penny wanted to know how the piece was made, so here’s precisely what you all need to know.

It’s not done with oil and brush, but with oil and nib.

Here’s how we painted it.

Silver Stain

Don't use water ...

Mix It This Way And You’ll Get Amazing Results

Jeff Hitch e-mailed us from Mission Viejo in California with a question about silver stain:

Can you please give me some tips on how to paint with silver stains? I have been using vinegar and brushes with no metal (since I understand there’s an active ingredient in the stain which corrodes the metal). They paint OK but they just don’t flow as well as other types of paints. Also, I can’t get them to gradate very well. Can you help?

Yes.

Stained Glass Tracing with Vinegar

Sue Sills wrote and asked us about mixing glass paint with white vinegar:

I have only used water and gum for mixing tracing paint so far.

But I was recently told that you can use white vinegar instead of water and that it stopped the paint from drying out so quickly, thus making it better for tracing lines.

Do you know if this is so?