A colleague from the Netherlands asks us something really useful:

“As a novice, I have a burning question.

Say I experiment with your technique: so I paint an undercoat and then copy-trace the main lines from the design.

Now what if I make a mistake during tracing. What is the best procedure for correcting this mistake without ruining the work I’ve already done?”

This is such an excellent question, we’ll approach the answer from several different directions.

First, though, let’s step back a bit and give some context to the question.

“All your tracing and shading, front and back, in a single firing”

Yes, we discuss and demonstrate this a lot. Not because it’s the only way to paint stained glass. Rather because when you master this technique, many other techniques are easy by comparison.

And also because so many people have been told, “It’s impossible!”.

Well it isn’t.

Here’s what we mean:

1. Paint an undercoat which primes the surface of the glass
2. With the design on top of the glass, lightly trace the main lines
3. With the design on one side where you can see it, strengthen the main lines as needed
4. When these are dry, cover the whole surface of the glass with a light overcoat of paint
5. While this overcoat is wet, take your badger blender and turn these precise lines into blurred lines and shadows
6. Now with your tracing brush again, reinstate precise lines where needed and also add fine details
7. Make highlights as needed
8. Paint on the back as needed
9. Use oil-based paint on the front as needed
10. Make new highlights as needed
11. Fire your glass

So right until step 9, you’re using water-based glass paint.

And the glass is only fired once.

Why?

As I mentioned earlier, if you learn this approach, you’ll find most other things easy by comparison.

More to the point, you’ll do those other things with greater confidence and skill.

So when you decide that a particular design doesn’t need an undercoat but just needs really exact and bold copy-tracing, you’ll do this much better because of what else you also know.

See what you’ve done by learning “our” approach is you’ve learned how to observe and concentrate better, and these qualities are really essential for glass painting.

But there’s more to it than even this.

And it’s not even that this once-firing technique can save you time and money. Of course it can and will. But these are small benefits by comparison.

Yes, the really big benefit is that, when you only fire at the end, you’re able to continue responding to and adjusting all the different values of light and dark which are on your glass.

Whereas if you fire your trace lines and then do the shading, well, you’re stuck with them, aren’t you?

Sometimes that’s a good thing. Say when geometry and intense symmetry are involved. Yes? This is where the “trace/fire” approach (as we call it) – i.e. where you trace the lines then fire them in the kiln – is excellent.

But what about more fluid things with texture like clouds, fields, petals, hands, eyes … the list is endless. What about them, and the gentle fluidity they often want?

Ancient knowledge and the Industrial Revolution

Most likely the “trace/fire” approach became dominant during the Industrial Revolution.

Imagine all the activity in those big 19th century studios … all those church windows which had to be produced incredibly quickly and almost as if they were on a conveyor belt in order for the studio to return a profit.

Here’s where the temptation arose to abandon ancient knowledge in order to “simplify” the means of production.

Another casualty was oil-based painting. You see, if you’re just using water-based trace lines with the right amount of gum Arabic, then you can afford a certain amount of rough handling of the pieces without risking any damage to them. You can even pile them up on top of one another on the way to the kiln. Believe me, I’ve worked in a big studio – not a nineteenth century one of course – and that’s exactly what happens. So we weren’t allowed to use oil …

Because the moment you add oil (which doesn’t dry, and doesn’t contain gum), then you’ve got to slow down and pay attention.

Which we think is usually a very good thing.

I mean, are we painting glass or are we trying to imitate a machine that prints paint on glass?

You decide!

So anyone who’s interested in the idea of painting on glass (as opposed to behaving like a mechanical printer) can find loads of information right here on this web site. Just browse, read, experiment and enjoy.

And now to return to the excellent question …

Mistakes happen – but are they really unacceptable?

We’ve already mentioned an important part of the answer. You see if you’re not painting something that requires mechanical precision, the first thing is, it’s essential to be realistic about what is acceptable and what isn’t.

Say there’s some variation in the darkness or the thickness of a particular line.

Think hard: does this really matter?

Imagine the window in context: this piece will be surrounded by many others, and you have to consider whether it will be seen from close-up or from a distance – this too makes an important difference.

Here’s what I mean. When you next can, go into a church, find some painted stained glass, and choose some pieces to look at ruthlessly and analytically. I’ll bet you start to see flaws.

But the point is, it’s oten wrong to call them flaws. These variations are part of their humanity. Think of silhouetted letters where some parts of the script are lighter than others. Close-up, this is a flaw. At a distance, there’s a gentle undulation.

Now believe me here, David and I are the last people on earth to tolerate anything that’s careless or messy.

But we know very well that, when you’re staring hard at a piece on a light box, your eyes and your mind will tend to pick up on all kinds of small things which aren’t really important.

So of course be critical but don’t let yourself be distracted by over-criticism. There comes a point at which finding fault with oneself is actually the lazy thing to do. Sometimes better to pay attention and advance and see how well – from a “mistake” – it’s possible to finish.

Mistakes happen – so keep your copy-tracing light

And here’s another benefit of our approach: copy-trace lightly and when you come to reinforce, chances are the mistake won’t show. In fact chances are it’s no more a “mistake” than the light sketch marks we make in pencil when preparing to draw or practice a line on paper.

But you must keep your copy-tracing light and dry (not too much water in the brush).

Contrast this with the tradional “trace/fire” apprach. Here you’re meant to do your stroke in one go, without going over it again (“because that’s what causes blistering” – what rubbish!). So there you are, with the glass on top of your design, painting dark traced lines (and probably feeling quite anxious because you’vegot to get it right in one go).

Now ask yourself this: done this way, isn’t pretty much every stroke a mistake?

Here’s why: because, with your glass on top of the design, it’s nearly impossible to assess correctly your density and thickness of line.

With our approach by contrast, you first “sketch” the main lines. Then you put the design on one side. And then you build up the main lines as required.

And here you’re focussing on the line on top of the glass.

So you’re paying attention to what’s really important.

You’re much less likely to make mistakes. If you do, consider this next point here …

Mistakes happen – so consider what you’ll do next

Here you are, copy-tracing a line, and something has gone wrong. Another thing to consider is this:

Now you need to think through everything else you will do with this piece of glass.

So suppose you’re planning on going right through to step 10 above – that is, you’ll be softening, reinforcing, painting on the back, and painting with oil …

You have to ask yourself: will anyone know about what’s just gone wrong, or is it rather like a footprint on the sand that the incoming tide will wash away?

Only you can decide.

Decide wrongly, and everyone will be required to live with your error for 100 years or more.

Decide correctly, and your painted stained glass window will possess some individual life of its own.

Mistakes happen – and what can you learn from them?

Say it’s genuinely something unacceptable: a blob of paint drips onto a painted nose.

Maybe you do need to start again. It happens. It happens to all of us.

The thing is, that blob is actually information, and the question is, What is it telling you?

Figure that out, and you’ll paint better next time.

Now what might it be telling you? For sure, that something went wrong on your palette. Did you load too much paint onto your brush? Is the paint too wet? Is the paint badly mixed?

What I mean is, it’s no use deciding to rub out your work unless you also figure out what went wrong. See, rubbing things out sometimes becomes a distraction from not thinking.

Even if part of the answer is that you’re tired and need a break, what’s the point of rubbing out your work unless you give yourself that break?

How does this help answer our colleague’s question? Well, if you don’t solve the problem, what’s just gone wrong on one piece is a tiny mistake by comparison with what will probably go wrong with all the other pieces.

Worse, you’ll slowly be training yourself to accept lazy observation and poor attention to the details which count.

So the mistake is really a blessing.

Mistakes happen – but they happen less often when you are confident

Our Dutch colleague asks us this question “as a novice”.

Now we are good teachers. This isn’t boasting. It’s not even boasting if I say we’re excellent teachers.

Here’s one reason why.

It’s because we’ve figured out a different sequence of explaining and demonstrating things.

And we know this sequence is wonderfully efficient at building your confidence and skill.

Here’s the traditional way: a teaspoonful of paint on the palette, a long-haired tracing brush, “And now, (says the ‘teacher’) “now go and paint a line and copy this design …”

What madness this is. What wasteful and confidence-destroying madness.

Our approach is very different. Consider the 2-day course we run in the studio. For most of day 1, you’re either painting on the light box – literally, on the light box (not on a piece of coloured glass) – or painting silhouettes. That’s all of day 1.

Then on the morning of day 2, you practice how to shade by overcoating and blending (steps 4 and 5, right at the top).

By now you’ve quietly and systematically developed so much skill and confidence that in the afternoon you’re perfectly capable of painting a design that would trouble someone who’d done a course of 25 once-a-week evening classes.

So, with “our” sequence – of course it’s not ours but you know what I mean – of doing silhouettes and doing shading before doing tracing, that’s the kind of progress you make.

You learn to observe and understand the palette.

Yes mistakes happen at the start. But you learn how to make them into productive mistakes which teach you how to make them less likely in the future.

This is in complete contrast to the traditional method of teaching where you are given no information at all about how to learn from mistakes and prevent them.

With us, you learn to understand what’s gone wrong and change things for the better.

You can see that’s our approach: that’s why we make time to answer your questions!

“But you’re in England …”

Yes, that’s true. And many people fly or sail to us from overseas. But others can’t. Which is why we prepare the downloads.

The e-book, Glass Painting Techniques & Secrets from an English Stained Glass Studio is a “book plus video plus e-mail” way of spending 2 days in the studio with us. Of course it’s not the same. But it’s as close as possible. It’s only available from time-to-time because we like to give everyone the attention they need. If you don’t have your own copy, get it right here. Plus 70 minutes of online video demonstration.

Important: anyone with an earlier edition can always ask us for a free upgrade. We will then send you the link. For free. And you can simply print out the newly added pages. Always.

Or if it’s a full project you want to see, get Saint Martha who comes with 96 minutes of step-by-step techniques – including a mistake which you see how to overcome! Saint Martha is right here.

Just remember: what are you, a pseudo-mechanical device for printing glass with paint, or – a glass painter?

Essential Glass Painting Check-List

Here’s a check-list for anyone who’s starting out as a stained glass painter:

1. Keep in touch with us
2. Glass paint and mixing bowl, gum Arabic, media (water and/or oil), light box, palettes, palette knives, paint covers, painting bridge / arm rest, jam jars, badger blender, wide narrow brushes, tracing brushes, various sticks, needles, scrubs, kiln, kiln trays and kiln controller
3. Keep in touch with us, yes!

Stained Glass Paint

Use what you want, but we use glass paint made by Reusche. If you use glass paint made by Reusche, then we can usually help you if you meet problems or have questions.

Get their catalogue here. (For suppliers, see page 14.)

We’d advise a minimum of 3 ounces of Tracing Black (DE401) and 1 ounce Bistre Brown (DE402).

Some folks get anxious about the up-front expense of “this much” glass paint.

That’s fine. Just get over it. Use it as we suggest in Part 1 of our e-book, and this quantity of paint will last for a long time. By contrast, paint with a teaspoonful at a time, and you will waste glass paint quickly! It’s your choice.

A ceramic bowl is useful for mixing paint in before you transfer it to the palette for a final grinding.

As for enamels and silver-stains: you can choose to leave these to later. The most important thing is to make a start.

Gum Arabic

Added to water-based glass paint so that, before it’s fired, it isn’t excessively fragile once you’ve applied it to the glass you’re painting.

It comes as liquid or powder. We prefer liquid as used by water-colour painters. Ours is made by Winsor & Newton. One bottle lasts for years.

Tip: wipe the top clean and dry before you screw the lid back on – it is glue, after all.

Stained Glass Painting Media

The simplest medium is water. Start there. For an excellent recipe and mixing method plus video demonstration, see our e-book (which also explains the use of oil).

Light Box

We make our own. Here’s our specification:

• At least 22 inches by 16 inches. Can certainly be larger – make sure the glass is strong enough – but not much smaller. (Size is important.) You must allow for the size of your glass (possibly several pieces at one time), plus some/all of your design (which will be as large as it is), plus your palette (because it’s sometimes useful to illuminate your glass paint from beneath)
• 3 mm toughened glass on top which is sandblasted on one side to diffuse the light. Our glass rests on a narrow internal ledge. (It’s possible to use plastic instead of glass, but the main disadvantage is its flexibility when you lean on it to paint.)
• Lit by a low-heat, movable light source, such as a standard bathroom wall-mounted light. Painted white inside to reflect the light
• Mounted on legs which allow the air to circulate and also permit the electric cable to pass underneath

Stained Glass Painting Palettes

Used as surface on which to mix glass paint. Toughened glass, at least 8 inches by 14 inches. (Don’t waste time with smaller palettes.) For very granular paint, it’s useful if sandblasted on one side. Useful to have several for different media and pigment. Also useful to have a rack for storing palettes when clean and not in use.

Palette Knives

Used for mixing and grinding glass paint. Blade between 6 and 8 inches long. Springy.

Note: blade gets very sharp. Also gets worn and so can snap with age.

Paint Covers

Used to cover glass paint on palette when not in use. This slows down the rate at which the lump dries out. It also stops impurities like dust and grease from harming your glass paint. Glazed porcelaine cooking ramekins are excellent.

Painting Bridge / Arm Rest

Used when painting and highlighting. Keeps hand steady so that you can concentrate on glass paint and brush. Holds brush/stick in required position. Keeps hand away from unfired glass paint and also from glass (so no grease on surface). Make yourself with wood and wood glue. Useful to brace the underside of the legs with sticky sponge.

The new and revised introduction to Glass Painting Techniques & Secrets from an English Stained Glass Studio has a stack of useful photos which show you the best way to hold a bridge.

Jam Jars

Used to hold water, also for brushes, also to store oil-based paint and silver-stain in an air-tight condition.

A Large Badger Blender

Large blenders

Used to move wet paint around the surface of the glass. Also used to add texture to wet or dry glass paint. 3 inches wide is excellent for most purposes. Traditional model is very expensive and lasts a life-time with good care. Modern model is much cheaper, absolutely fine for most purposes, and lasts for years with good care.

The new introduction to Glass Painting Techniques & Secrets from an English Stained Glass Studio has a useful section on blending.

Wide Narrow Brushes

Used to paint an undercoat that serves as a “key” for subsequent tracing and shading. Also used to paint an overcoat that softens traced lines, allowing them to be dissolved and expanded with the help of a badger blender.

The best brushes we’ve ever found for both these jobs are called hakes (or sometimes haiks).

Our hakes are part of the “Ron Ranson” series. They are made by Pro Arte. We use the “large” size (item number is 50686452). These Ron Ranson hake brushes are also used by water-color painters. So you can ask your local art shop to place an order for you, or you can go online and find a supplier on the internet e.g. here.

We absolutely recommend this make of brush by Ron Ranson.

Tracing Brushes

Used to paint lines of various lengths and thicknesses.

• Can be natural or synthetic hair. Synthetic hair is fine for some cases e.g. thin lines made with oil-based paint. But the hairs are apt to twist and knot
• For natural hair, always choose sable. Sable is excellent for all media and all kinds of line (long/short, thick/thin, light/dark)

Regarding length: somehow the myth has got around that real stained glass tracing brushes have enormously long tips. Some brush-makers have even developed a range of “stained glass painting brushes” whose tips are 1.5 inches long (or more). But these long tipped tracing brushes are hard to use. We only ever use them when we have to trace very, very long thin lines – say lines which are 18 inches long, and we want to do this in one go.

We nearly always use tracing brushes whose tips are a bit less than 1 inch long. (What are you – a glass painter or a fetishist?)

Sable brushes come in various sizes from small to large. “Small” ones make a fine stroke, large ones make a broad stroke. The modern classification is numeric e.g. “00” to “6” for finest to thickest. The traditional classification takes its cue from the bird whose quill is used e.g. “lark” to “goose” for finest to thickest.

For most tracing, you need fine sable brushes whose tips end in a point – exactly the same kind of sable brushes as a water-color painter would use.

Make sure you get high quality brushes.

High quality is indicated by the fact that the brush doesn’t easily loose its hairs and by the neatness of the point in which the hairs end [picture].

Even with tender, loving care, daily use always takes its toll. A new brush has very little spring and takes a bit of time to come to life. It then performs well for several months or perhaps a year or two (depending on the frequency and roughness of its typical use). Finally, it will begin to lose its spring. The hairs will crumple around the ferrule. At this point, retire it to a gentler life: take a knife and sharpen its end, and use it for highlighting.

Start with 3 tracing brushes: a fine one (that is “0″, not the finest “00″), a middle-sized (“2″) and large (“6″).

Sticks and Needles

You can improvise anything here e.g. a needle stuck into the end of an old painting brush, a knitting needle, a sharpened piece of bamboo, a cocktail stick etc.

Scrubs

Take care and singe hog-hair brushes to a short stump.

Kiln and Kiln Controller

Read around. Ask around. Try before you buy. Hire time on someone else’s kiln.

Kiln Trays

We don’t use kiln wash or kiln paper. When we fire glass in a kiln, we use whiting (calcium carbonate) as a separator. We use trays made from 1/8 inch gauge mild steel which are ½ inch deep. We fill the trays with whiting (calcium carbonate):

Take a sheet of toughened glass and press down the powder so that it is perfectly smooth on top. This is the surface on which to fire the glass. The glass doesn’t stick (not even when it’s been painted on both sides). When the compacted powder get dirty, take a spoon and lift away the dirty bits, then add more powder and press it all down again.

There’s an online video demonstration right here.

Onwards!

The main thing is not to get distracted by shopping for everything you might need when this will just just distract you from the real task – learning how to paint stained glass.

And, if you consider the hundreds of years during which people have been painting glass, it’s clear that the fundamental requirements must be fairly simple!

So get the basics.

And keep in touch with us.

Ivo de Croock wrote to us from Antwerp, Belgium, and asked what we meant by the term “fire-polishing”.

In the first place, we don’t etch with acid at our studio. (A colleague lets us use their studio for acid-work.)

But we sometimes etch by sand-blasting.

Now the sand abrades the surface of the glass and leaves it rough.

It’s now that we “fire-polish” the sand-blasted glass.

1. We put it in the kiln and fire the glass to about 710 c. / 1310 Fahrenheit.
2. We soak it there for about five minutes before descending and annealing.

This has two effects.

It smooths the sand-blasted glass.

It also softens the line where the sand-blasted glass meets the glass which has not been sand-blasted.

All in all, the glass seems to us to appear more like a liquid than it did before.

After the fire-polishing, we can paint and stain it as we normally would.

And this is what we did in the small panel of which you see an excerpt at the top of this post.

Tom Ansell wrote and asked us whether we’d used lead-free glass paints.

We hadn’t.

So we decided to give them a try.

And here’s what we discovered.

We used Reusche’s Series 5 tracing black (E401) and bistre brown (E402).

Now series 5 is flagged as lead and cadmium free, which is all good and fine. But we would remind you that, whilst using these paints, you must still be aware of the danger of inhaling dust.

When preparing our lump, we used exactly the same procedure as we always do. The only difference was that we prepared about half our usual quantity.

The first thing we noticed was the incredible creaminess of the paint.

So smooth and creamy ...

We imagine it was a bit like wearing a satin shirt when you’re used to good hard-wearing cotton … (Not that we’d know.)

Just mixed, it was a little tricky to get to flow smoothly. But that’s also what we’d expect of our paint that isn’t lead-free. So we covered it up and left it overnight.

And here’s where we discovered something really interesting.

Next morning, the lump hadn’t dried up as much as we’d expected it to.

Surprisingly usable the morning after ...

This wasn’t down to how we’d sealed and covered it: we did the same as we always do.

Nor was it down to the temperature in the studio: we compared it with some ordinary tracing paint that we’d also been using the day before.

So we suspect it’s connected with the size of grain, which may also explain the extraordinary creaminess of the paint.

Now why is this an interesting discovery?

Leave aside that the paint is lead and cadmium free – the slow-drying property of this paint might be particularly useful to glass painters who work in hotter climates than we have here in overcast and cloud-bound England.

Why?

Because, even uncovered and in use, the lump remained creamier for longer, and overall needed less attention.

Overall, we continued to find the creaminess a little bit unsettling.

We imagine it was a bit like driving a Jaguar XKR 5.0 V8 Supercharged Convertible when (like me) you’re used to cycling.

The paint loaded nicely, although its smoothness and creaminess take a bit of getting used to

That is, perhaps a little too smooth for our own personal taste and experience.

But maybe something that I’d get used to.

In fact, if England were hot, then I’d jolly well make myself get used to it.

And my test pieces fired just fine on the usual firing schedule. Here’s one of the silhouette tiles that you’ll find in Part 2 of the e-book:

Excellent finish after firing

And here’s a leaf that we often paint on our glass painting courses in the studio. It uses softened lines as explained in Part 3 of the e-book:

Also fine for softened lines and shading

Our conclusion is that Series 5 is worth looking at, not just for reasons of health and safety, but also on account of its moisture-retaining property.

All the same, we ourselves will continue to use the standard lead-based stained glass paints as used for hundreds of years now.

Becky D., from Stoke-on-Trent, England, asked about gold paint.

“I am currently painting an art nouveau style lady for a centre insert into a leaded light. I’m mainly using antique browns and silver stain, possibly with some coloured enamel details for jewels. Now the customer has asked if it is possible to use gold on the headpeice. Do you know if gold paint is available anywhere? So far I can only find hobby paint, and I don’t wish to use that!”

The answer may be lusters (or lustres). You can use metallic lusters to give your glass the appearance of an object of gold, silver or copper. You can find out about Reusche’s range of lusters right here. (See page 11.)

Lusters are applied and then fired.

A different approach is to use gold leaf, which doesn’t need firing.

That’s in fact how we re-created this glass in the servants’ quarters of an English country house – with gold leaf and rabbit “size” (glue).

"Where's my blasted gin and tonic?"

(Ah, those were the days! The owners pulled cords, whatever room they were in. Down in the servants’ quarters, the appropriate square would flash. And off the servant would dash to do the bidding of his master and mistress.)

Our facsimile is protected by a piece of glass at the front of the box. This is just as well because gold leaf, even with lacquer on top, can easily be scratched. Lusters, however, are permanently fixed by firing.

Of course, another reason for the glass at the front is that this particular stately home is now occupied by a family with two four-year old sons … one of whom kicked a football at the 19th century original. (Remember Matthew 19:14, please.)

Doris Cultraro, from Rhinebeck, New York, US, writes and asks us about the kinds of brushes that we use for stained glass painting.

Here’s our list to get you started.

• Wide narrow brushes for undercoats and overcoats
• Blenders – large and small – which are mostly used to move wet paint around on the glass
• Tracing brushes of various thicknesses for different kinds of line
• Scrubs and stipplers to make highlights and texture

For now, we’ll concentrate on tracing brushes and the wide narrow brushes which are so good for painting undercoats.

Tracing Brushes

Short-tipped pointed tracing brushes

We’re often asked about the length of the hairs on our tracing brushes.

Now this is a really important question, because somehow the myth has got around that real stained glass tracing brushes have enormously long tips.

Some brush-makers have even developed a range of “stained glass painting brushes” whose tips are 1.5 inches long (or more).

The plain truth is, long tipped tracing brushes are hard to use.

We only use them when we have to trace very, very long thin lines – say lines which are 18 inches long, and we want to do this in one go.

Other times we use tracing brushes whose tips are a bit less than 1 inch long.

These come in various sizes from small to large. “Small” ones make a fine stroke, large ones make a broad stroke.

Their hairs are made from sable.

For most tracing, you need fine sable brushes whose tips end in a point – exactly the same kind of sable brushes as a water-color painter would use.

Make sure you get high quality brushes.

And, to repeat, you rarely need tracing brushes whose tips are longer than 1 inch!

Wide Narrow Brushes (Also Known As “Hakes”)

Excellent for undercoats and for softening traced lines

Jackie Carey, from Malvern, England, wrote and asked about the make of our wide narrow brushes. She said:

“I’m having trouble finding decent hakes. I’ve bought several from local art shops. Some were dirt cheap, and others were not-so-cheap, but they all shed hairs all over the place. Where do you get yours from, pray?”

Let’s start by saying how we use the wide narrow brushes.

Their first use is to paint an undercoat. This is something we cover in Part 2 of our e-book. Their second use is to transform traced lines into shadows. This is something we cover in Part 3 of our e-book.

The best brushes we’ve ever found for both these jobs are called hakes (or sometimes haiks).

Now of course there are many different kinds of hakes.

Our hakes are part of the “Ron Ranson” series. They are made by Pro Arte. We use the “large” size. Their item number is 50686452.

These Ron Ranson hake brushes are also used by water-color painters.

So you can ask your local art shop to place an order for you, or you can go online and find a supplier on the internet.

These brushes are worth the weight in gold. Maybe not many stained glass painters have so far cottoned on to their excellence. All the same, if you’re serious about making it easier for yourself to do an excellent job, go get yourself a couple.

Cindy Whitehead from Cleburne, Texas wrote to say her first silhouettes had blistered in the kiln when they were fired.

What went wrong?

Sad as this is, blistering often happens when most people do their very first stained glass silhouettes. The thing is, silhouettes are almost effortless to paint, and it is precisely the lack of effort that often perplexes people when they paint their first silhouettes.

The effortlessness takes time to get used to.

People often try too hard.

The Millpond Test

Here’s a way of seeing whether you’ve used as little effort as possible.

It’s the “Millpond Test” – a millpond is (amongst other things) a flat, still expanse of water.

And that’s the point.

Examine your painted silhouette before you fire it. Observe how smooth it is.

Now there will always be some marks and seams.

How on earth do you achieve the desired smoothness?

The answer is, by doing as little “painting” as possible, and by being very clear that, when you paint silhouettes, you must use you brush in a very different way compared with tracing.

Suppose the paint has only just left your brush. Then, yes, you can encourage it and nudge it and push it a little.

But there are two things to avoid.

• In a very short time, the paint will begin to dry (even though it still appears perfectly wet): it is important to leave it alone from this moment. Otherwise, you risk creating an imbalance within the paint, and this is one of the main causes of blistering.
• It is important that you do not use your tracing brush “as if” you were tracing. When you trace, your brush makes contact with the glass. When you flood, the brush mainly makes contact with the pool of paint. So you use your brush to push along the top of the flooded paint that has just left your brush. This is just to say that, when you paint silhouettes with this technique, you must really have it in your mind that you are using your brush in a very different way.

“Why paint stained glass silhouettes at all?”

Perhaps you’re wondering, Why paint silhouettes at all?

First up, this technique – we call it “flooding” – is always useful when you paint stained glass. Blocking off around an image is how you force light to squeeze itself through the unpainted areas. This intensifies the effect on our eyes. Just see the stained glass pike at the head of this post. Imagine how less dramatic he’d look if we hadn’t flooded around his outline …

Secondly, silhouettes are the best way we know of learning how to paint stained glass. In painting silhouettes, you’re introduced to a wide range of essential techniques: undercoating, copy-tracing, reinforcing and flooding. So, to anyone who feels their tracing is wobbly or below par, we’d always say: “Just spend time painting stained glass silhouettes, and you’ll soon see a distint improvement”. That’s why, in our e-book, we take a lot of time to show you exactly how they’re done.