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    Stephen Byrne

    Designer, glass painter, writer

    Posted on

    Anxious About Highlights?

    Here's a simple 9-step plan

    by

    I understand why highlights worry many people. The lines and shadows demand a lot of patience, yet they’re only half the story. Till you’ve put the highlights in, your painted glass – however finely traced – is dull. It’s one-dimensional.

    Softening the highlights on a stained glass owl

    Highlights are the cure – as you can see above.

    The problem is, highlights also have a risk. A big risk: if you do them badly, they will wreck your work.

    Old palette knives make great leading knives

    With the heavy use you give your palette knives, they wear out in a year or so. Indeed, ours sometimes snap. What then? The waste bin perhaps? No – like a come-back film star, they have a second life: they make great leading knives.