Live from the Studio – Day #5

Tracing – how to hide the evidence …

This morning with our students, it was Gothic Revival / medieval faces.

After lunch – by way of contrast – gargoyles and other monsters.

And with all this detailed line-work, the following conversation was inevitable.

Be sure to read to the climax of this tale, because you’ll find a really useful tip.

Problem #1: “When your glass is on top of your design – as it is with tracing – it’s so difficult to judge the darkness of your lines. – And it’s also really difficult to register them precisely with the lines on the design beneath …”

Your Design – What Must It Show?

OK, your stained glass design – what must it show?

Which is not the best question … –

Rather, who is the design for?

Who must the design instruct, guide or persuade?

A committee? A patron? A priest? A businesswoman or man? Their secretary? A journalist maybe? Or is it “just” for you, the glass painter?

Yes, the design must be “fit for purpose”, we can all agree on that. But this means you must first decide which purpose – or purposes – it must be fit for. So, if you have several important purposes which can’t all be met by one version of the design, then you maybe will need several different versions of the design.

Don’t get upset at this – don’t “shoot the messenger” …

I’m just telling you how things are.

Anyway, here’s what we often do. And even if you decide to do things differently yourself, I’ve got a really useful tip for you – just read through to the end. And enjoy the pictures along the way!

Stained Glass Painting: “What if I Make a Mistake …?”

A question from the postbag

A colleague from the Netherlands asks us something really useful:

As a novice, I have a burning question.

Say I experiment with your technique: so I paint an undercoat and then copy-trace the main lines from the design.

Now what if I make a mistake during tracing. What is the best procedure for correcting this mistake without ruining the work I’ve already done?”

This is such an excellent question, we’ll approach the answer from several different directions.

First, though, let’s step back a bit and give some context to the question.

Stained Glass Highlights

A slideshow

I made this for you so you’d see the key points and nothing else. To pause the show, move your cursor over the main slide. To re-start the show, move your cursor away again.

(more…)