Finishing one project and about to start another, I resolved to do some filing.
Upstairs in the studio, there’s an ancient wooden chest which holds my sketches.
And you know how it is.
Pictures leap out at you.
They take you back in time.
They remind you of the lessons you’ve learned.
New video inside this post. It’s a technique we use a lot. And love. The reason we didn’t film it earlier is, we didn’t have a place where we could teach it properly – I don’t like “half-baked” teaching. But now we’ve made a course on shading. So we prepared a set of videos. Here’s a taster so you see why we love this way of working.
As you know, we really like our tinted glass. It gives the lines you paint a welcome lift. Maybe you remember jumping as a young child and your father holding you from behind and lifting you up higher. That’s how a bit of colour in your glass can help your tracing. So we often start with tinted glass like this:
And yes, you could begin with an undercoat, but today – since there’ll be a lot of shading later on – you trace and flood on bare glass:
And you let the paint dry.
Now this is Tracing Brown by Reusche mixed with a particular medium I mentioned in an earlier post: if you let this medium dry before you work on top of it, you can carry on and on and on.
For instance, you can now apply a wash, and you needn’t be the slightest bit worried about your painting, because it just won’t move:
So that’s the first wash.
And now you do something else, like sweep the studio or paint another 11 pieces, because you want this wash to dry.
Then when it’s dry you cut some highlights, so:
And now you can apply a second wash. Remember, none of this is fired:
And again you do something useful instead of twiddling your thumbs while this second wash dries.
Your patience will be rewarded because, when the second wash has dried, you can cut new highlights or restore some old ones:
And you don’t even need to stop here. If you want to, you can add more shadows. I didn’t though – I fired it here. But I could have carried on: it’s amazing, this technique.
I’ll stop talking now and let you watch. This is one of several technique we use to shade:
Here’s a free gift for you – the design.
When you want to learn this technique – how to trace, strengthen, flood and shade with just one medium, in a single firing – the course is here.
First the Process, second the Backstory, and then we’ll talk about the Why.
More here
For those of you who have Grip, we’ve just published a useful demonstration of stained glass tracing.
It’s slow-motion, close-up and with 3 cameras so you see everything you need to see.
Here’s a clip from it:
To get this video (and the others in the series), download your own free copy of Grip right here.
Shading used to take a lot of time and mean several, sometimes many firings. There’s nothing wrong with this: why should beautiful effects be quick and easy to achieve?
But shading also used to be a worrying experience: “Has it worked?” you’d ask yourself – and then you’d have to wait for it to fire before you knew.
I think these techniques make shading more enjoyable than it used to be. And also more immediate: you can see quickly that it’s worked – and you can also make adjustments till you’re happy:
If you’re interested in shading, look here.
Today you’ll see the techniques I use to paint a stained glass beast. Yes, you’ll discover how to do it all in a single firing. This is just like I did it for our students in the Netherlands in July. And it’s just like I did it one morning a month ago when Stephen had his camera on. I’ve got lots of demonstrations for you to watch – eight, in fact – so let’s get going now.
One last point before we start. You’ll need a good hour to read this article and watch the videos I’ve made for you. I’m saying this so you can be prepared. The information here is excellent. It’s also free. I don’t want you to miss out. So the best thing is, you know before you start how long the journey is.