The Glass Painter's Method: Brushes, Paints & Tools

By Williams & Byrne, Stephen Byrne and David Williams

 

Watch the trailer here.

This book will serve you well if:

1. You’re new to traditional stained glass painting and are uncertain which brushes, paints and tools to buy – this book will tell you what you want to know. The accompanying 12 free online videos will also introduce you to the key techniques.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Hoplite Press
• Release date: Dec 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781999618919

Book preview

I

Line, Silhouette and Highlight

Line, Silhouette and Highlight

I arose before dawn and mixed several pounds of paint for the painters who arrived at 6. Expecting praise, I received abuse; Master Inchbold struck me so I bled on account of how I added too much water and made ‘vile useless slops’ he cursed.

Journal of Nathaniel Somers, 12 April 1847

Introduction

Brushes, paints and tools for traditional glass painting

Artists these days are less empirical in outlook than our 19th-century guide, the glass painter and explorer, Nathaniel Somers, whom the conspiracies of history have long sought to hide from public recognition.

Educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, Somers prepared maps for the geologist Adam Sedgwick before accepting a brief but stellar apprenticeship with that large Victorian firm of stained glass manufacturing, William Wailes of Newcastle upon Tyne, whose chief painter, one Frederick Hugh Inchbold, he detested.

In tribute to Somers’ ‘objective method’ (as he styled his approach to art), it’s not enough we provide you with a bald list of brushes, paints and tools. We must also prove they are sufficient to take you far. Then you can buy your supplies and, confident you have the best, you can focus all your energy on mastering the techniques you’ll see us demonstrate throughout this book.

Therefore meet Agathon:

Agathon - original watercolour painting

This is a photograph of the original watercolour (charred as you see it reproduced here) which Stephen found in December 1999 inside an ancient leather travelling case containing Somers’ journals and other items, including his brushes, five sheaves of correspondence, a fountain pen, eight exquisitely drawn maps, and a finely decorated silver blade of considerable antiquity.

Seventeen years later, David painted a copy of this ancient image. Then he rendered it in black ink to give us a version which we could paint on glass before your eyes and thus demonstrate beyond all doubt the superb fitness of the brushes, paints and tools you’ll now meet.

Black and white version as used for tracing

How fitting: Agathon will be your guide as he was Somers’ (whose excised story we’ll tell elsewhere).

You can download both versions of the design and copy them yourself: see Part 4 for how to do this.

Meanwhile, here in Part 1, you’ll discover the brushes, paints and tools which will take you from bare glass (left) to a fine account of Agathon’s likeness (right):

Bare glass (left), first firing (right)

We’ll give you proof you only need three brushes:

Just three brushes

Just these three brushes will set you free to learn the key techniques with clarity and confidence.

Checklist

Since we’ll jump to and fro between the main characters and how they serve you, a simple checklist is helpful here to get your bearings.

To mix your paint, you’ll need:

powdered glass paint

water in a bowl or jar

gum Arabic

a mixing bowl

a palette

a dessert spoon

a teaspoon

2 palette knives

a paint cover

paper towels

a cloth.

To trace, flood and highlight as you’ll see us demonstrate in Part 1, you’ll also need:

a light box or some way to light your glass from behind

glass

a hake brush

a badger blender

a tracing brush

a painting bridge

a wooden stick

a kiln.

And that’s it – not much. If this surprises you, please don’t imagine this list is just for starters. On the contrary. With just these brushes, tools and paints, you could copy images from churches throughout the country: that’s how far this list will take you if you wish.

Let’s begin with a bird’s-eye view of where you’re going.

Overview

These are the major steps you’ll take along the first part of your route:

Mix your paint.

Clean your glass, then prime its surface with a thin layer of paint, which we call the undercoat.

Trace the design.

Strengthen your trace-lines.

Flood the border.

Cut the highlights, and also soften them.

Fire your glass – or add shadows as you’ll discover in Part 2.

Now for the first step: we’ll start with everything you need to mix a perfect lump of glass paint.

Mix your paint

One of the hardest challenges for the beginner

These days many people have grown accustomed to an easy life: they expect their products ready-made and off-the-shelf. And so we raise the next two points, or else they might surprise you:

You don’t squeeze glass paint from a tube and straight away start painting. Instead you measure a quantity of powder, add your chosen liquid, squash and squeeze it for several minutes, then, on your palette, you dilute this lump of thick paste one slice at a time to the consistency you want: runny, thick, light or dark, depending on the kind of line or tone you want to make.

If you want to trace a lovely line, the most important work occurs before you load your brush. It’s true: when you know how to prepare great paint on your palette, you’ve solved the hardest challenge – a theme we’ll return to when you meet the tracing brush.

The problem is we’ve grown accustomed to writing with a pen whose ink ‘just flows’: we can’t imagine what it would be like to prepare this ink ourselves and also care for it so it behaves the way we want it to. But this is what it’s like to work with glass paint. We tell you this upfront so you appreciate the importance of these first items you’ll now meet, and the length of our discussion.

Glass paint

Traditional kiln-fired glass paint

‘Glass paint’ (as we use the phrase throughout this book) is the paint you use for lines, shadows and silhouettes. Most glass paint is dark, e.g. black or brown, or else you wouldn’t see it well with light behind it. You usually fire it at about 660℃ /1220℉.

For your first batch, you’ll need 4 oz (100 g) of Reusche Tracing Black and 1 oz (25 g) of Reusche’s Tracing Brown or their Bistre Brown. (These paints contain lead and cadmium. If you prefer a paint which doesn’t contain these elements, use Reusche’s Series 5 instead.) Once mixed, these quantities will last you a good time: glass paint does not go off the way some books suggest, though you must learn to seal it well to stop it drying