David Williams

We prefer liquid: here’s why

Gum Arabic isn’t essential. (Patrick Reyntiens, for example, barely uses it at all.) It’s just that, without it, our dried, unfired paint would be extremely fragile.

Also, we would not be able to shade and matt as we want to – that is, all in one firing, including oil-based paint on top.

Now stained glass painting stockists mainly stock gum Arabic in powdered form.

But I prefer the liquid, and here is why:

Liquid is far easier to mix in than powder when you first prepare your basic lump.

When you need (as you sometimes will) to adjust the adhesive strength of your paint, you’ll again see that liquid gum Arabic is far easier to mix than powder.

To use powder, it’s best to mix it first with – water … Now when you buy liquid, you know the adhesive strength is evenly distributed throughout the solution (which it’s difficult for you to know when you mix it up yourself), so that’s one more problem taken care of for you.

Liquid gum Arabic is the same medium that water-colour painters use.

So just find a good supplier of traditional art materials, and they will help you.

Stained glass painting – liquid gum Arabic is easier to work with than gum Arabic in powdered form

Best,

David Williams of Williams & Byrne, the glass painters

We’ve tried tracing and shading paints from all over the world. But we always come back to Reusche.

Reusche’s glass paints mix together to make the lump of glass paint that permits us to do the kind of glass painting we enjoy. (Other brands of paint collapse like slugs with salt on them, or like a beached jelly-fish roasting in the sun.)

Also, Reusche’s “tracing” paint works a dream for both tracing and shading, so there’s no need to swap paint.

We mix Tracing Black (DE401) with Bistre Brown (DE402) or sometimes Umber Brown (DE403) or Tracing Brown #1 (1134). We use about 3 parts black to 1 part brown. These paints mix beautifully together.

Why do we add brown?

On the palette, lit up from beneath by our light-box, it’s gentle on our eyes.
After a few minutes on the palette, the black and brown begin to separate a little. This serves as a useful visual reminder to keep re-mixing the diluted puddle of paint with which we’re tracing or shading.
Fired, it makes a gentler, softer “black”.

If you also use Reusche, then it’ll be easier for us to advise you in case you ever have any questions.