We use gas, but it has one disadvantage …

Some of you folks are forever teasing us about our soldering iron. I mean, here we are – Williams & Byrne – designing and making fabulous stained glass for fabulous houses: at the top of the profession, and yet we use gas to join the painted glass and lead. But my point is -

Gas works for us, with the quantity of soldering we must do as quickly and as efficiently as we can, in order to get on with the next big project. But there’s just one small, annoying problem …

What is it?

Watch the video in the box top-right.

Best,

P.S. You’ll need to turn your volume up. And if you can’t see the video in the box on your right, see here for common problems or just watch it on a different site.

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Glass painters often ask why I use oil before I fire my tracing and shading?

It’s all to do with the lovely effects that oil lets you quickly make.

Watch this video and you’ll see why.

One thing I am certain of. Namely …

Thisdragon – see picture, right – is well and truly finished. It’s a strong design, don’t you agree? (You are left in no doubt as to the result of this fight.) You’ll find it on the north side of Hereford Cathedral – not far from us. See St. George and his conquered dragon here.

Best,

P.S. People often ask us about silver stain and the tinned side of glass. Stephen’s got some great information about this. Only in the newsletter – it’s free – just type your email in the box, right, and click “Sign Up Now”. It’s how you can learn more techniques each week.

When you visit Arley Hall in Cheshire, you may wonder whatever happened to the second of six magnificent stained glass windows which tell the story of a medieval hunt …

See right.

Guesses?

Well, this time it was not the fault of Thomas Cromwell, because that was the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s, and these windows (and the Hall itself) are nineteenth century.

But this time – as then – it most likely was an English soldier.

Yes, this time – which is sometime during the Second World War – the Hall was requisitioned by the Army.

Whose soldiers needed target practice …

All six windows originally came from France and were made by Andre Lusson: exquisite quality – look at this:

A scene from the 5th window

Lusson – who spent so much of his life designing and making stained glass for churches whose windows had been destroyed by French Revolutionaries: somehow these windows of his arrive in England where one of them is shot to pieces by an English rifleman.

Credo: the five’s survival must be down to intervention from On High (not bad shooting – the English are good shots; they just don’t take much care of their stained glass, is all).

And the missing window?

Well, by a miracle, Lusson’s sketch survives. I have seen it with my own eyes.

You’re in for a treat here. Look at this historic document and marvel:

Andre Lusson's water-colour sketch for "Entry into the Forest"

Lusson was a consummate master of his craft – he knew exactly where he would go with this sketch. When someone has real confidence, less is always more.

Best,

All set now to paint the fierce lion tomorrow: tracing (outlining), then flooding. And once the flooding is dry, I’ll pick out his highlights using “the chalk method” – just like you do with stained glass lettering.

The prototype (not stained yet) came out fine (see right). Pin It

As usual, the water-colour design (see slideshow here) is more use to our client than it is to me the glass painter. Which is why I spent an hour making a pencil tracing which shows me the key lines and highlights I need to do my work:

The design - here's what I need to do my work

It will be a big piece as painted glass goes (430 mm / 17 inches across) – and worth every effort to make it the best it can be.

Best,

P.S. I describe “the chalk method” in an article I wrote for Glass Patterns Quarterly (Summer 2009) – see it here.

P.P.S. Is this something you find helpful – writing a plan before you start? I do. I always write a plan. If you don’t, I suggest you do: it clarifies your thoughts and means you are sure about the role each technique will play.

My plan - 17 steps to paint the fiercest lion

Let me tell you that the key points are: have a plan (don’t usually invent things as you go along), hold your glass firmly with one hand, work from the bridge with the other, choose your highlighting tool with care (make your own as needed), be confident (not scratchy, unless scratchy is what you really want), consider stencils (especially if you have a repeating pattern), remember how the back of the glass is also good for stained glass highlights, and use your hands as needed (just be sure they’re clean).

Right, now I’ve said my piece, will you also have a look?

Your trace lines – your outlines, or contour lines – these lines can only be as good as your paint and tracing brush allow. So if your glass paint is badly mixed, or your tracing brush is wrongly shaped and loaded, your trace lines can’t be right. End of story.

That’s why today I want to show you the right and the wrong way to load your tracing brush. I just ask three minutes of your time, that’s all I’ll take, and in return you’ll see the difference.

Bad habits plague most of us

We all have different habits in how we use our hands. Which means we often – even without thinking (that’s the problem) – transfer these habits to our glass painting.

For example, we all use a computer keyboard, which means we hammer out letters and words.

And when we write by hand and paper, we all press heavily with our pen, secure in the unspoken knowledge the ink and nib are cleverly engineered, so nothing will leak or spill.

Really, writing by hand or keyboard has become an “impact sport” (and injuries do result).

Now of course you know how working with a brush is different. Of course you know a brush is soft and springy. Of course you also know you can give it many different shapes.

We all know these things.

Yet the natural habit is still to push too hard.

Which means when people load their tracing brush, this is the kind of thing they often do:

This is not the way to load a tracing brush with glass paint ...

This isn’t usually the way to do it. The obvious reason is, it distorts the brush.

The less obvious reason is, it loads the brush with too much paint.

And the disastrous consequence: wrong-shaped trace lines that are far too heavy. They’re probably also runny and uneven.

The answer is, a lighter touch

So this is what you need to learn to do:

This is much, much better

You must learn to twirl your brush round and round, across on the surface of the paint.

Yes, across the surface.

This is how your brush gets and keeps the shape you want – by twirling and skimming round and round.

This is also how your brush only absorbs as much paint as you want it to (because you never force it to “drink” more than its natural capacity).

In other words, don’t use your brush as if it were a broom …

How not to load a tracing brush - your brush is not a broom

Rather, imagine this – your brush is rather like an ice-skater:

How to load your tracing brush - much better

Even if you’ve heard me say before how you load you brush by “twirling and swirling”, these photos will make things clearer.

All the best,

P.S. The only way to be sure to get all these tips and demonstrations is to sign up here for the free email newsletter.

Today four more useful reminders for you

Stephen’s four reminders last time were: oil, flooding, holding firm on pricing, and being comfortable when you work.

Now it’s my turn to look back on 2011 and also take you forward to the coming year.

1. Racing to trace vs. pacing your tracing

First up, tracing – specifically, what you must do to trace well. I don’t care how many times we mention this (repetition works).

Every week we hear from people whose whole approach has drastically improved – just because they stopped racing to trace and started focusing more on their palette.

As Abraham Lincoln said:

“If I had four hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend two of them sharpening my axe”.

Watch here the time it takes to load and shape your brush. When you do this properly, you improve your tracing straight away.

2. Magic bullets

I also like the honesty of Stephen’s approach right here. The point is, sometimes the secret of improving our skill isn’t found in buying something else but in simply making do with what you have right now. That’s why Stephen and I mostly work with just a few good brushes like these.

3. Vampires

For my next point, I plan to cheat – I want to remind you of something Stephen wrote in 2010. It’s more relevant than ever because some kinds of money (note the emphasis: some kinds, not all) are scarcer than ever. And in my view, that’s a good thing on the whole.

You see, I don’t like grant-dependency. I think it’s undignified.

Yes, I’ve changed my view with time. When I was a student, I thought grants were great. And I remember I was outraged when a lecturer told me “a grant-dependent artist was no more an artist than a prostitute was a girl-friend”. I don’t mean this language to offend you; I just want to make my point.

Back then, 30 years ago, I thought my lecturer was outrageous and reactionary. Now I just think she was giving me good advice about standing on my own two feet.

Time and again, I’ve seen the temptation of public money diverting time from making and wasting it on form-filling. Here’s one example, a cautionary tale.

(Bureaucrats and vampires – I’ve yet to spot a difference.)

4. Another cost of silver stain

I cannot greet the New Year without reminding you how, if you continue using water or vinegar with silver stain, then, no matter how long you clean them, the stain will eat your brushes and corrode your palette knife. It’s going to happen, and it’s going to cost you money.

Which is another reason we don’t mix stain with water or vinegar.

Rather we use oil; the good thing for our brushes and knives is that oil-based stain does not corrode them. This saves you a whole lot of time and money.

Mind you, that’s just a side-benefit.

The main benefit is, stain and oil work beautifully together. See here for a demo about how convenient it is to stain with oil, and here for another demo where you see how reliable it is.

And that’s all for today – more next week

Write when you’ve got questions.

Be sure you’re getting our email newsletter.

And accept our best wishes for a happy 2012 -

P.S. Kiln-fired stained glass painting – get your free weekly tips right here:

Take a few minutes to remind yourself about these four important glass painting techniques

It’s a rough world out there …

Your best skills are needed more than ever.

That’s why it’s so important you look back and take account of all the things you’ve learned here these past 12 months.

So this week and next, we’ll select a handful of techniques you must master absolutely. I’ll start right now with …

Oil. Any fool can make things more complicated than they are; it takes a touch of genius to make them simple. That’s why David’s post on oil-based stained glass painting is worth your time. You’ll find it right here.

Next, flooding: if your paint ever blisters and bubbles in the kiln, remind yourself of these essential points. There’s also a quick video demonstration you can watch. All here.

Now an embarrassing one, though it really shouldn’t be. But pricing your work is difficult enough, even without Saint John warning us how no man “might buy or sell save that he has the mark or the name of the beast” (Revelation, 13, 17). And so, if you can take the heat, here’s why you shouldn’t simply calculate the cost at which to sell your painted stained glass. Yes, you have to do much more, and this is why.

Last for today is comfort. All right, this isn’t a “technique” as such. But I still want to state this important reminder: it shouldn’t always feel like hard work. Indeed, to paint glass well, you also need to be relaxed. Watch this clip and you’ll get the idea.

Until the next time -

P.S. These are just four quick reminders from the 50 articles we published here in 2011. The only way to get them all is to join our free email newsletter. Once you sign up, you’ll also get the glass painting tips and techniques we only send to our subscribers. All free and always private (because we will never sell or give your contact details to anyone else).

If you’re not already getting the free email newsletter, you’re missing out – sign up in that little box on your right … just type your e-mail to get the weekly tips and videos.

The design can “make” you rush

A big problem you’ve maybe met is how, with the design in front of you, you want to rush and hurry and get it finished.

And yet …

And yet with everything you do with kiln-fired glass painting …

• Undercoating
• Tracing
• Strengthening
• Shading
• Highlighting and softening -

… yes, even cleaning the glass before you start: everything has its own pace which you must recognize and respond to.

Of course, experienced glass painters work faster than newcomers (like David sped through his undercoats in the video he made you last time).

But – if (that is) they still enjoy their work (and by no means all of them do: what a loss this is) – even fast-working and experienced glass painters respect the necessary rhythm of things.

Indeed, there are two perils of rushing.

First, you can make a mistake.

Second, the work becomes a chore, a burden – a means to an end, and rather heartless.

Which is no good – no good at all.

Particularly tracing – we instinctively want to see the outline

Take tracing.

Yes, tracing is a good example because we fixate so much on forming the outline:

“Thank goodness: the contour lines are all in place – everyone can see what it is now! – I can relax!”

I know this feeling well.

We often rush to form the outline - I know this feeling well

And it’s completely wrong.

Maybe the design has just eight lines. Maybe it has 749 … the number doesn’t matter: if you take them all at the correct pace, you’ll get them right, and you’ll also enjoy them for their own sake as opposed to simply rushing through with them.

On the other hand, when you rush tracing, then all kinds of things go wrong.

Like when you rush a curve, your brush can change shape or skid.

And when you rush a straight line, your paint won’t flow. (Yes! Often it’s because you’re moving too fast – you’re using your brush and glass paint as if it were a felt-tipped pen.)

To get it right – which doesn’t mean you go at a snail’s pace: it just means you don’t rush, is all – you have to move across from our twenty-first century world and adopt a very different way of doing things.

Getting one stroke right at a time - and then moving onto the next stroke

For example, each time you load and shape your brush, your thoughts are focused on the line or two in front of you: only on them: and you absolutely gather your attention and make sure you do everything you must to get them right. Just those one or two strokes.

And then you move on – to the next one or two strokes.

In a sense, your ambitions are very modest, and that’s exactly what helps you succeed. You see, all it is is “just” one good line, and then another, and then another, just one at a time, each one in its own time.

Unlike our 21st century

And why do I say this is so different from our twenty-first century world?

Well, when I was down in London the other week, I had someone “talking” to me while they were also texting on their phone.

Glass painting by contrast – OK, crafts are: one thing at a time, and mindfully.

Like I said: that way you’ll do it right, and also enjoy the journey.

Now let me finish by telling you a story. You’ll see the connection in no time at all …

A rush-hour performance

In Washington DC at a Metro Station, on a cold January morning in 2007, a man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 58 minutes. He was a busker, a street musician, right?

During that time, maybe 2,000 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

And what exactly happened?

You’re a glass painter – an honorary outsider, as it were! – so if you don’t already know, well, you can probably guess.

After 3 minutes, a middle-aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds, and then he hurried on to meet his schedule. About 4 minutes later the violinist received his first dollar: a woman threw money into his hat and walked on without stopping. At 6 minutes, a young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

10 minutes in, a 3-year old boy stopped, but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head the whole time. This action was repeated by several other children, but every parent – without exception – forced their children to move on quickly.Some clue there surely …

At 45 minutes, the musician was still playing beautifully. Six people stopped and listened for a short while. And maybe 20 gave him money and continued walking.

For a few dollars more

After 1 hour, the violinist finished playing. There was hardly any appreciation … just one or two people at the very end who had sensed they were witnessing something special.

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played some of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before, he’d sold-out a theatre in Boston where the seats averaged $100 each to sit and listen to him play the same music.

This is true. It was an experiment. Joshua Bell, playing incognito in the D.C. Metro Station, was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people’s priorities.

Myself, when I first read about this a while back, I wondered: if we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made, well, I’m not so very different (even if I wish I were).

Which means I too must be missing so many other things as I rush through life. I’m sure I do – yes, all in the foolish rush to “get things done”.

And that’s what made me think of glass painting and not hurrying what you do.

That’s my point here.

OK, my students often think I’m crazy, I can live with that (for a couple of hours)

You know, when I’m teaching, it often takes a while for my students to stop thinking I’m weird. You see, I might spend three minutes tidying my palette and mixing my paint even though there are perhaps “only” four or five brush-strokes to paint.

And sometimes, when a student’s painting and I’m watching, sometimes I cry out: “Goodness me, your palette looks gorgeous – look at it: isn’t it beautiful? Can you see how completely perfect it is for what you want to do?” And they look at me as if I’m … well, like I said: they maybe think me strange because they haven’t yet got the confidence or experience to know exactly what they’re aiming for. (Which is why they’re spending time with me and David.)

I am not crazy - this palette looks gorgeous!

Yes, to start with, my students often think me mad. But – after a couple of hours – they see my point. It all starts to “sink in”. And then …

Then they’re like the few commuters who stopped and listened. They too fall in love with scenes like this one here:

So lovely ...

And, if you don’t yet have this confidence, that’s also what I also want for you.

Take this on trust until you see if from your own experience: don’t rush the tracing, the strengthening, the softening and shading, the highlighting – don’t even rush the cleaning and the undercoating: set aside the twenty-first century world.

Don’t “rush to work”.

This is so beautiful - it's important you enjoy it!

The whole point – yes, when you’re in the midst of it, it is the whole point: nothing else matters, even if you’re being paid – the whole point is the process of making something as it should be made.

Only then will it be fit for the rest of its time, whatever becomes of us the maker, the parent.

Makes sense to you?

Great!

And in that spirit of attentiveness, be sure to call back for our next three posts.

Together, we’ll look back on many of the tips and techniques we’ve shared with you this last year.

Happy glass painting!

P.S. You can read the original Post article right here. It’s a couple of years old but still relevant.