Watch This Video About How To Revive Your Hake

And organise your palette

I’m sure this scene’s familiar – it’s how your palette often looks before you start:

  • Your lump of paint is under a small bowl.
  • Your reservoir of left-over paint is under a larger one.

And your “applicator brush” – your hake – is clean and dry.

So yes, I’m sure you’ll recognise this sight:

Hake and stained glass palette at the start of the day

Meanwhile, this is where you want to be before you start to paint:

Hake and stained glass paint

It’s different: yes indeed.

Now your hake is a wonderful brush.

But it’s like a teenager: there’s a knack to waking it up and getting it ready for a day’s work.

A method …

Clean and dry

So your hake will start its day like this – clean, and dry as a bone:

Dry hake

And, to revive it – to wake it up – what doesn’t work well is this:

Don't dip your hake like this

Maybe this won’t seem fair: after all, it’s fine to revive a tracing brush like this, by plunging it in water, then shaking off the excess:

How to revive a tracing brush

But the hake is different. 

It’s special.

You must handle it with care.

And in this video, I want to show you what we do.

Just please don’t do this

How NOT to revive a hake

… because drowning your hake can cause you all kinds of problems (it’s like screaming “Get out of bed!” at a 15 year-old).

There’s a gentler, slower, more effective way instead.

This method you’re about to see, it revives your hake and loads it.

It also helps you organise your palette:

How to revive your hake and organise your palette

(To download the video and play it off-line, click here.)

Effective – and fast

Now this video runs for five minutes. The reason is, I’m filming it and doing it step-by-step.

The great thing is, when you know what you’re doing, you can do it all in four three two.

Yes, just 2 minutes.

FAST!

My point is: it won’t take you long to “swap water for paint”. Not long at all. And what you get in return is: a revived hake and an organised palette.

Plus … perfect paint for undercoating or tracing with.

P.S. If you’re interested in learning more, maybe this foundation course we filmed will help you get where you want.

7 thoughts on “Watch This Video About How To Revive Your Hake

  1. Steve, how do you get your brushes so clean? I try just with water, but it takes ages, and I don’t want to use chemicals that might affect the brushes.

    • It is just water I use. (You’re right to avoid chemicals – they might affect the brushes, or could indeed affect your paint next time.) I’m interested in figuring out why yours looks darker: I reckon the most likely explanation is, it’s a trick of the light, a trick of video – a slight over-exposure inside the camera(s) so you can see the paint. All along what matters most is that your hake serves you well: if it does (but looks darker than mine), no worries.

  2. Dear Mr. Stephen: As always this video of your demonstrates in clear terms the way to proceed with a glass painting by organizing your hake & palette. The best part is that you visualize your painting tools as living beings in the process of hake being loaded with water & then paint. I would say you are doing a great favor to glass artist around the world by distributing your immense knowledge. My regards to you.

  3. Thanks, Stephen, for this most recent video. I think watching a video (vs. reading the steps) really brings it out that taking the extra bit of time on each process helps to achieve a nicer result.

  4. Hey Guys, Thank you for the “Wake the Hake” video. I like that you have not skipped time in this series of instructions. You have given us a visual time clock to drive home the value of thorough preparation of the paints and brushes. If you had fast forwarded the video, I feel that I might be inclined to fast forward the procedure, leading to a mediocre prep and a dismal outcome. Good going!

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