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.

Here’s a free gift for you – the design.

I’ll stop talking now and let you watch. This is one of several techniques we use to shade:

Here’s a free gift for you – the design.