"Do I look old enough to you?"
Now the tycoon has approved the 16 designs, it’s back to us to secure his agreement on the painted glass itself.
As you’ll remember, his insistence is, it must look ancient.
Which explains why we’ve spent these last six weeks establishing and refining the necessary techniques.
Today the tycoon’s architect called in. The meeting went as well as you could wish. I’ll show you in a moment.
But first let’s look at how the ancient-looking glass was stained. Here’s a short and thrilling video for you. (And if anyone just gets an empty space, Stephen’s told me to suggest you check your Adobe Flash is up to date – whatever that means …)
So it’s the usual score. Settle back. Turn on the volume. See how pleasurable it is to silver stain with oil. And at the end you’ll catch a glimpse of some sample fragments which made the architect swoon with pleasure. Next stop, the tycoon himself …
(Video not showing? Just got a rectangular black box? Maybe you need the latest version of Adobe Flash.)
Happy staining!
Best,
P.S. Be sure to get all the tips and techniques – only when you join here:
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
How wonderful! I never saw anyone else use stain with oil. This is the ticket. I am going to use it for an acrobat in a circus, small panel next.
Thank you!
Hi Joan,
The epiphany of oil and stain! Yes, I experience it each time I think back to those long, dark days when I did what I was told and just used stain and water or stain and vinegar …
You make the base paste with stain and sandalwood amyris, then use spike lavender as a thinner. And always do tests, lots of them – even with oil, no one avoids testing!
Best,
David
Thanks as always for showing us your work! How do you keep the silver stain from moving when you do the badger blending? Mine slides over the lines every time., and cleanup is a disaster. Usually makes it worse, by smearing.
I would imagine you are doing it very lightly, perhaps, and my strokes are a bit too heavy. But if I go light, nothing blends. Sigh.
I do love the oil with silver stain, though. So much easier to handle–and it smells so nice!!
Hi July,
Good question. It’s partly down to the thickness of the mixture which you apply (which means not too runny: not too much lavender). And it’s partly down to the blending: the blender just pushes the very top surface of the oil, which means the oil which is underneath the top surface itself clings to the top surface and “retards” it from moving in the way you would think it would move.
As I say, really good question. I hope at least some of the answer makes sense and we will be sure to make or dig out some film clips which will help here.
Best,
Stephen
Hi David and Stephen,
Just watched your video … thanks again for taking the time to show us … just a few questions if that’s OK?
It looks to me as if you have primed, traced, flooded and highlighted the front as usual, but that you have speckled with a toothbrush the back of the glass. Am I right in thinking you are then applying the oil & stain over the top of the speckled surface on the back?
When you do this can you fire it all once or do you fire before you apply the silver stain?
If you are doing it all in one firing, do you place the oil-stained side face-down in the whiting tray … or the painted side face-down?
Does the whiting stick to the oil?
How long do you leave the silver stain to dry before firing?
Thanks!
Sue
Hi Sue,
Glad you like the video! David’s in a meeting right now so it’s me coming back to you with various answers (and yes of course it’s great for you to ask questions because they help everyone).
Yes, we are indeed applying oil-based silver stain to the reverse of a piece of glass that we’d painted as you state (though with several more layers front and back).
Now because there was oil-based glass paint on the front – this is before we come to silver staining – the glass had to be fired face-up i.e. as a separate firing.
It is perfectly possible to combine glass paint and silver stain in a single firing. (You must simply run various tests to be sure you get a compatible schedule.) But whenever you use oil, you must fire that side face-up. Which means you cannot use oil-based techniques on both sides of a piece of glass and combine them in a single firing.
Well, that’s our experience – as always, everyone should experiment in their own way!
So if we were in a situation where we wanted or needed to combine stain and glass paint in a single firing, we’d first decide where we had to use the oil: in the glass paint on the front, or in the silver stain on the back. Then we’d take things from there.
And yes it is our experience that the oil doesn’t “dry”, so we’d expect whiting or fibre paper to stick to it were we to fire it face-down.
When we paint with stain and oil, it’s fine to fire the glass immediately. (Indeed, if you don’t fire it immediately, you must make sure to protect it from airborne dust and grime.) But we ourselves use a slower firing schedule – one which allows the glass to soak and the fumes to burn off for maybe 30 minutes at around 100 Celsius / 210 Fahrenheit. Hard to state firm rules here because maybe it also depends on the oil you’re using (in the video, it’s oil of Tar) and also the quantity of glass you’re firing.
I hope this helps.
Good questions!
Best,
Stephen
I was reading a book by J. Kenneth Leap on firing silver stain (it’s on the internet on Blurp) – and the firing time of holding the temperature for really long periods of time puzzled me. Do you hold your stain firing for 25 minutes or gasp 6 hours?
Hi Joan,
I know Ken has done a whole series of astonishing and meticulous experiments, and documented everything for others to learn from.
I have every reason to believe in the thoroughness and integrity of his research; and when you consider the amazing silver stain work that people did in bygone centuries, it’s clear it’s a field in its own right.
When we use stain, we’re normally after an effect that maybe is not as particular as would usually require us to take special pains. So the majority of our effects can be achieved with oil plus a very rough and ready firing schedule – though this schedule will always depend to some extent on the particular glass we’re using. So we would normally soak for 15 minutes at 100 C. / 210 F. on the way up, then go to top temperature in 2 hours, then come down without a soak.
As I say, rough and ready is mostly fine for our work. But there will be circumstances when we will need help from all the research that Ken has done.
I hope this helps.
All the best,
Stephen