The Real Glass Painting podcast: episode #1
It’s interesting to talk with people, not just paint and write. So this is something new for you.
A podcast.
Episode #1 – the glass painter as storyteller.
Stained glass painting
These two demonstrations are amazing. I can say this without embarrassment because it’s another person’s work I’m talking about.
Yes, it’s such a joy to get this insight into how another glass painter lives and earns their living – the techniques they use to get incredible results.
So now it’s your decision whether to stop what you’re doing and see what you find out. Watch the first part here. And then you’ll find the second part right here.
It is our strength that we learn from our experiences, and it can also be our weakness. So we are both blessed and cursed when we pick up a tracing brush.
Blessed – because we already know to grip it like a pen.
Cursed – because we expect it to function like a pen.
And it doesn’t.
Or so I thought until I learned about the pens which astronauts use to write in zero-gravity space: I’ve just discovered a helpful similarity …
Now with added video
At best we’re used to hard-nosed pens and pencils.
At worst we always use a keyboard or a touch-screen on our smart-phone.
That’s why I owe you this reminder about how to hold your tracing brush …
You’ll also find a very helpful video, so you see exactly what I mean.
The sequence of your lines
First this line, then this one …
When you trace a stained glass design, you trace one line after another. So you trace the first line, and then the second, and the third and so on, until you’ve copied all the lines.
My point to you today is, you must study the design before you start.
But not just that, because the crucial bit is this: you must decide the sequence of your lines.
Decide?
Yes, decide.
In a moment, you’ll get two walk-throughs. But to start with, just take your design and …
Why you don’t need a hair-dryer
“I don’t need a hair-dryer, nor do you …”
When you watch The Master & the Beast, you’ll see exactly how to do all your glass painting in a single firing, layer upon layer until your piece is finished.
Now one important point about painting layer upon layer is: you wait for the previous layer to dry before you paint on top of it.
The reason is, when you paint on wet paint, you risk damaging the layers underneath.
That’s why you wait until the paint is dry – because the gum Arabic will set.
So a question I’m often asked is, Do I use a hair-dryer?
Last week when I was teaching a very promising beginner, I was reminded of this useful point.
Namely, it’s easy to take a rule (“Do it like this …”) and generalize it to an incorrect situation.
Here’s an example.
It concerns how you use your painting bridge.
Daffodils
by Stephen Byrne on February 3, 2013
In the late-middle years of his working life, there was once a man who visited our studio. He knocked and walked in with a package, and here is what he told us concerning his apprenticeship and the problem he now had.
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