Author Archives

    Stephen Byrne

    Designer, glass painter, writer

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    Your Undercoat: the Fifth Benefit

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    There are various reasons you must consider if your glass will benefit from an undercoat before you start to trace. 

    Do you remember what these reasons are?

    We’ll cover them in just a moment.

    And – looking ahead – will it surprise you when I tell you how the undercoat also helps your viewers’ eyes?

    Therefore, unless you are painting only for yourself – which might sound luxurious to start with, but actually it’s a mixed blessing because a demanding client can improve your work no end – this is something you definitely must know.

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    Your Tracing Brush, the Ballpoint Pen, and Zero-Gravity

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    It is our strength – your strength and mine – that we learn from our experiences. But this can also be our weakness: we are both blessed and cursed when we pick up a tracing brush.

    Blessed – because we already know to grip it like a pen.

    Cursed – because we expect it to function like a pen.

    And it doesn’t.

    Or so I thought until I learned about the pens which astronauts use to write in zero-gravity space: I’ve just discovered a helpful similarity …