Tracing and strengthening – how to mix perfect paint
"If I had as many hands as heads, would you let me join you?" said the second of the tycoon's beasts, because even tycoon's beasts like guessing games ...
It’s day #1 of an intensive five-day glass painting course for “long-haul” students who’ve travelled to our studio in Stanton Lacy (see my previous post for your nerve-jangling introduction and an absolutely breath-taking 90-second video).
The story so far …
Our students arrived two days ago to settle in and recover from their jet-lag. And today, refreshed, we went on a whirlwind and empowering tour of undercoating, tracing, strengthening and flooding – the foundations of traditional kiln-fired stained glass painting.
Now … we promised you various tips and updates live from the studio.
Today’s key tip is useful if:
- You sometimes run into problems getting your tracing or strengthening paint to the perfect consistency; or
- You teach glass painting and find your students adding too much water to their palette
Interested? Then let’s get going … [click to continue…]
A great question from a colleague in Maryland, USA:
I am an experimental physicist in mid-career and very busy with work – so my time spent on stained glass and glass painting is very sporadic – it has been 8 or 10 months since my last project.
Is it OK to make the lump of paint (as you teach) and leave it for 6 months to a year?
Should it be tended to periodically over that time?
Will it “come back” and be usable after a very long time?
And the answers are … [click to continue…]
5 Causes and 1 Myth
57 new subscribers this week – it’s great so many people are willing to work hard improving their glass painting techniques.
Make no mistake: working with us is often tough, but you’ll get great rewards!
And I don’t mean the free video at the end of this post.
I mean: your own achievements.
Today – blistered paint – you know, when glass paint bubbles and cracks in the heat of the kiln: 5 causes and 1 myth.
But first, here’s why you must know how to do it properly … [click to continue…]
It is not every day you sit in a tycoon’s boardroom (nice Gothic lion-clawed chairs, by the way) and receive a challenge:
“The commission is yours if, within seven days, you can forge me two fine pieces of ancient-looking glass …” (the tycoon growled)
The boardroom was littered with other makers’ samples – wallpaper, curtains, rugs, table-tops …
I could see the tycoon’s problem – I’m quick like that …
[click to continue…]
Here’s a useful link to 19 glass painting strategies you can use right now. From undercoating to softening and from blocking in to modelling. You’ll find the 19 insider strategies right here.
How many do you use each time you paint stained glass?
They’re all right here.
OK so you know how to make your lump of paint as you discover in Part 1 as well as in a 10-minute online video demonstration.
You’ve also found out the benefits of diluting it a little at a time to make the consistency and darkness of paint that you need for your next sequence of brush-strokes.
And then it’s time to stop for the day …
When you return, your lump of paint is dry.
Really dry. Dry as a bone in fact.
What on earth do you do to bring it back to life? [click to continue…]
There is a mind-numbingly irritating consensus which insists that stained glass paint should be fired between successive layers. This silly idea is found in any number of so-called instructional books on stained glass painting techniques.
It’s wrong, of course. – And here’s a short wordless video which – ahem! – proves the point! [click to continue…]
by David Williams
In Part 2 of Glass Painting Techniques & Secrets from an English Stained Glass Studio, you discover an amazing technique for painting with oil-based stained glass paint on top of unfired – note this: unfired – water-based paint. If this technique is new to you, read more here.
This is the exact technique we use each day to achieve a particular sense of depth and contrast in our work.
That’s the point about the information you get from us: it’s all tried and tested to the limit.
Sure, there’s always more to learn.
But what you learn with us is excellent and true.
Now this particular technique involves oil and brush.
Stained glass fighting bird in oil with nib
But have a look at this sample piece of painted stained glass.
This is the very piece which caught Penny’s eye when she took time off from the front-line of our National Health Service – leaving the nation at the mercy of Swine Flu – while she spent a weekend with us at Stanton Lacy.
And what a stained glass painting course that was!
A time when people meet each other and immediately know that they will meet again.
Penny wanted to know how the piece was made, so here’s precisely what you all need to know.
It’s not done with oil and brush, but with oil and nib.
Here’s how we painted it.
[click to continue…]
