Author Archives

    Stephen Byrne

    Designer, glass painter, writer

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    Obsessive About Glass Painting

    And that means other things must suffer

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    Yes, when you do a lot of one thing, other things must suffer

    Unless …

    Because we paint stained glass, what always happens is: designing and painting are the things we do a lot of, whereas a far smaller part of our time is involved with (a) cutting glass, or (b) assembling it in lead, soldering, cementing etc.

    So let’s say we’ve got a three-month project whose design is finished: everything’s ready for us to start.

    • First up, we’ll cut glass for maybe two weeks.
    • Then, at the end, we’ll lead-up, cement and polish for maybe two weeks or three.

    In between, it’s painting, painting, painting. Two months’ worth of painting (along with chasing new projects and preparing initial designs for later work).

    Now painting’s great. Painting’s absolutely wonderful. But doing so much of it could easily make big problems for us elsewhere. The problems could be, our cutting and leading might suffer. Actually, this could easily happen.

    And that’s why …

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    Is This An Answer To The Misery Of Dried Out Glass Paint?

    My tests so far ...

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    These past several days, I’ve spent time testing an ingredient which, added in small quantities to my usual lump of glass paint mixed with water and gum Arabic, so far appears to possess these helpful properties:

    • It slows down the rate at which the lump dries out
    • Reduces the time it takes to restore my dried-out palette each morning and post-lunch / phone calls / meetings etc.
    • Improves the evenness of my copy-traced lines
    • Helps with flooding because the paint is held together more smoothly than before
    • Permits crisp highlights and wondrous softened highlights
    • Still allows me to do everything else I like to do like ‘ordinary’ softened lines or softened half-tones …

    All this is wonderful. Almost too good to be true.

    But …

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    How To Use Your Badger Blender Properly By Blending From All Sides

    From all sides: not just one

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    When your undercoat goes down, some people are too timid: they “badger” too gently. Like they were dusting a priceless china vase. Like they were frightened they might break their glass.

    Stained glass painting badger blender

    Like they don’t really want to blend.

    But let me tell you this: that’s not the way to do it.

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    Is Your Hake Brush Tougher Than You Think?

    Today: a tip I've used and tested these 15 years

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    Today I want to share some understanding of two big topics:

    hake brush stained glass painting
    1. How you paint a better undercoat
    2. How you treat your hake

    I’ll even talk face-to-face with you over my light-box and show you what I mean: such is the joy of video (for those of you who have this technique-packed e-book).