I think you’re “spot on” with your comment about coming from the heart.

It’s definitely possible to tell the difference between a brush-stroke with life and a sterile one …

Which is why using a stick to re-shape a dried traced line easily destroys the grace it once had.

Indeed it’s often better to have a slightly uneven and graceful line than a line that’s been carved and corrected out of existence.

All the best,
Stephen

Making mistakes, as you rightly suggest, is the perhaps the best way of learning and how taking a back step to see what went wrong should ensure that basic errors don’t occur again.

Perfection is in the eye of the beholder and we are perhaps our own worst enemy in looking at our work with the keenest of criticism. In my former life, I was in PR and looking back, I spent most of my time writing copy, then editing, rewriting etc. Funnily enough, I almost always ended up with the original copy and a few educated tweaks, as the copy came from the heart. And perhaps that is where the best, fresh looking and original stained glass painting comes from!

Keep up the great work and thanks for your continued inspiration to us all.
Eileen

All the same, a mistake is just that and nothing else.

Generally, therefore, I myself would not take any comfort from something’s being a mistake that “couldn’t be noticed”.

It’s still a mistake.

But, when you’re painting one of the bird roundels, for instance, and, during copy-tracing, part of the beak is thicker than you’d intended, you have to ask yourself: does this really matter?

The answer is, Probably not – precisely because you’re going to strengthen it, block it in, and then shade with oil.

Another example – one which is directly relevant to R-tist-Dug’s example of the model railway.

Speaking to you as someone who spent the best part of 4 years restoring and conserving 19th century glass from all over the world, I had the daily opportunity to examine closely hand-painted bits of glass which were meant to be seen from afar.

And let me say this: they did not work.

Not close up they didn’t.

Thing is, if they had worked from close, they would have failed when seen from afar.

So I have seen my fair share of crude thick lips and bulbous insensitive eyes.

What I mean is that I’ve seen enough to know how these lips and eyes became obects of breath-taking delicacy when placed 20 feet up in the east window of some historic English church.

And if they had struck me as delicate from close-up, I am sure they’d have been unnoticeable from afar.

Which would have been a mistake – and ruined the window.

Essentially, it’s pointless putting in every rivet on a 1:76 scale model because it’s going to be seen moving past at speed, and the viewer is almost never going to see the model closer than a yard away. Sure it’s a mighty achievement to build a model train with individually upholstered seats and a flushing lavatory, but if it can’t be seen, why go to the bother?

And thus with a stained glass piece that’s possibly going to be many metres up in the air, or a piece with a small flaw that will end up in the middle of a large panel surrounded by many others pieces of an overall design.

Try propping the piece in question up a few feet away and ask yourself honestly if you can still see the glitch. Ask someone else to have a look at it and see if they can see anything wrong. I’d suggest that mostly, the only person who will pick the mistake will be the artist who made it, and nobody else.

And if it is something like a blot on an eyeball or something hideously noticeable, do what you do when you lose a piece you’re cutting: mutter to yourself “oh dear, you naughty piece of glass”, think about what went wrong and how not to do it again, and then cheerfully get on and redo the thing.

Thanks for your question.

So, when you paint back and front and want to fire them in a single firing, the top side fires fine but the bottom side wipes off.

One or more of three things are going wrong here.

First, as you say, you need to increase the temperature, and maybe also the “soak” time at the top – this increased soak time will allow the heat to permeate down to the underside of the glass and so fuse the paint which lies beneath. This is the most likely solution.

Second, it’s possible – just possible – there may be a complication caused by the surface on which you’re firing. We ourselves mainly use whiting (calcium carbonate). It’s also possible to use plaster of Paris, and kiln paper, and kiln wash and so forth. Clearly, different firing surfaces can interfere in different ways with the way in which your glass paints fuses to the glass.

Third, less likely still, it’s the glass. (I say “less likely still” because we’re talking here about glass paint, not silver stain.)

I’d say, try the first hypothesis first: that is, increase the temperature and/or the soak time, and then let us know how things are.

All the best,
David

I love getting all your updates with very useful information.

One problem I’ve had is painting on both sides of the glass and trying to fire it as I normally do.

What happens is that the top side fires fine but the bottom doesn’t fire and will wipe off.

Any suggestions?

Should I be firing at a higher temperature or longer when I do this?

Thanks,
Janae

Even though I don’t do glass painting, I REALLY love reading your stuff, and I wish I COULD! But I just do normal stained glass work (leaded – very new – and copper foiling), and I love it.

I hope to see you again soon!
Marie

Best,
Stephen

The question was very good but your answer is so explicit! Even I could follow it! The fantastic and priceless information from you is such a blessing to receive! Please keep up the lessons even though they are taking your time – so many others are learning an art form that we don’t want to die from lack of passing it on to others. You’re the best!

Jack