Hello again!

Right – here’s what life was like in the studio earlier on today:

Hot and unbearably smelly outside (the studio is beside a farm).

Very warm inside – with the air just about breathable.

And the paint on my palette was drying up faster than I wanted.

Now when you’re painting glass, it’s a real nuisance to have to keep on mixing up fresh paint.

Reason is, you want it all to be the same for the whole sequence you’re doing. And you can’t be sure of this when you move from one batch of paint to another …

So say you’re strengthening the main lines around a face – well, it’s usually best if you can start and not stop until you finish.

This means you need a good reservoir of paint that’s always ready to go.

When you’re ready like that, you just load your brush and shape it, maybe stop for a quick test, then off you go to paint a few strokes, then back to load and shape your brush again. And so on. And every so often you re-mix the paint you’re working with.

But if things are hot, the palette easily dries up after a few minutes when you might really need enough paint to last you for 15 or even 20.

So there I was, painting for pleasure, copying this decoration here.

And I was copy-tracing the main lines, with the glass on top of the design.

Copy-tracing is fundemental to the key idea that you don’t need to trace and fire then shade and fire again and so on.

Rather, it’s often preferable to build up lines and shadows bit by bit (not all at once).

This way you can often do all your tracing, shading and flooding in a single firing.

(You learn how to do this in the online foundation course we run: Illuminate!)

Anyway, to let me do all the copy-tracing in one go, is my palette. Let’s travel round it and see what’s going on:

Top-right, my lump of glass paint (1) is in a good condition. It’s too thick to use as it is, but it is ready for me to dilute it a bit at a time as needed. (It’s usually covered, which slows down the rate at which it dries.)

There’s also a good supply of dark thick paint (2), again too dark to use as it is, but ready for me to call upon as needed.

I’ve got a good-sized working reservoir of paint (3) – this is what I’m actually using to do the copy-tracing.

Plus I also have a small supply of water (4), too light to use as it is, but ready for me to call upon as needed.

So, to be clear, it’s (3) I’m actually using to do my copy-tracing:

Each time I load my brush, I can either use (3) as it is. Or I can quickly choose to include some paint from (2) and/or some water from (4) to keep (3) pretty much the same the whole time.

Very important tip: small adjustments are much easier to cope with than large ones.

That’s why it’s best you always look after the paint you’re using (rather than letting it run out and having to stop to dilute some more).

What’s more, with this arrangement of the palette, I also have the option of useing the water (4) to look after the lump (1), and then introduce the resultant dark paint into the dark puddle at (2), which in its turn can then be mixed with my working reservoir (3).

I’d just need to be sure I rinsed and dried my brush before using it on (3) again – otherwise it might change (3)’s darkness and consistency too violently.

Maybe this sounds a bit mechanical when I put it down on paper.

But actually there’s a very natural rhythm and flow to things when you do it like this.

Which is why I mention it today.

Yes, this is just one way to organize a palette.

And yes, my palette isn’t as tidy as it should be (sorry for not always practicing what I preach …).

But the real point I’m making is that the palette is there to serve you.

So it’s down to you to organize it exactly as you need to do the kind of painting that you want to do.

If you don’t do that, your painting will be a hit-or-miss affair – probably a miss.

On the other hand, when you organize your palette, then all (!) you need is good hand-eye co-ordination to paint glass beautifully.

Easy as that.

So next time you paint, take a good look at your palette and make sure it’s organized in the best possible way.

I hope that helps.

All the best,

The Glass Painter’s Method