This never works.
Anyway, done correctly, it takes less than 10 minutes to get your glass paint into perfect form.
Let me show you what I mean. It’s all here in a quick video.
This follows on from a recent post about the 5th benefit of undercoating, and also from “The Beastly Lion of Wolsey Towers” – episode #1, in which you saw how to undercoat a large piece of glass.
Today, cleaning your badger.
This is important because, dirty, your badger will wreck your matts and shadows.
Clean, it will serve you wonderfully for life.
So if your matts and shadows aren’t working, sure: it might be you’re being heavy-handed. All the same, your badger just might need a simple clean.
Last week I was in London. I was there to discuss a set of designs we must prepare next autumn for windows we will make in 2016.
And so, leaving myself sufficient time between meetings, I called in to see a dear sculptor friend of mine.
He’s hugely talented. Famous too: successful. You’d probably recognise his name.
But despite his vast fame and talent, one look told me how upset he was. Anxious. Agitated.
This information on this page is important if you’re new to silver stain or if you only mix it with water or vinegar.
This information is not for people who already use oils with silver stain.
Or if you already know how to trace, blend, shade and flood with silver stain.
All other glass painters, please continue – this is really useful to you.
When you “bulk buy” silver stain straight from the manufacturers, it will cost you between US $158 and US $324 a pound (16 ounces), depending on the type you choose.
Which is anywhere between to $9 and $20 an ounce.
Of course when you actually buy it one ounce at a time, maybe you’ll pay a third or more on top, so maybe $12 to $25 an ounce.
An ounce.
So that’s the cost issue.
Silver stain is expensive.
And if you only ever mix it with water or vinegar, you’re pretty much throwing that expensive powder to the four winds.
Not to mention the disappointment when it doesn’t work …
It’s up to you. It’s your life, your work. Do you enjoy the struggle? Really?
Silver stain is gorgeous – when properly applied and properly fired.
Improperly applied and improperly fired, of course, it’s as ugly as sin.
What’s more, your piece is pretty much ruined. All that work is wasted. (Unless you go to the bother of using hydrofluoric acid to remove the ruined silver stain …)
But let’s focus now on the good side of stain. Unlike glass paint, it’s transparent. You can use stain to shade white glass into yellow, orange glass into red, blue glass into green. It’s a joy!
So when I said a moment ago it was expensive, let’s just be clear: nothing’s expensive if it’s worth it, and silver stain – being so beautiful – is definitely worth it.
It’s just that it’s so difficult to use.
One day it works, the next day it doesn’t. What’s going on here?
See, it’s the failure-rate which really makes silver stain “expensive”.
Reduce the failure-rate and improve your techniques, and silver stain is worth it without any shadow of a doubt.
Most people mix stain with water or vinegar.
Their failure-rate is fairly high, I hazard to guess.
Nasty ugly “metalling” on the one hand or infuriatingly weak colour on the other. Bah!
Seen from the outside – this kind of failure is unacceptable and unnecessary – you’ll discover why it happens and how to avoid it
Yet what’s actually worse is that, even when it works with water or vinegar, there’s still a massive failure to reach stain’s full potential. Its sheer unrivalled beauty.
Can you use water or vinegar to shade and blend?
No, you can’t.
That’s my point.
These are the main problems I remember from my days with water and vinegar (oh, what days of endless frustration they were):
What a mess. What a waste of time and money. What a failure to achieve beauty.
But you can change all that.
Here’s the answer.
Information on the correct use of silver stain is scarcer than gold dust. In most books, you’ll be lucky to find more than a paragraph.
Even then, you’ll mostly be instructed in the use of water or vinegar, which as I’ve shown is pretty much pointless.
So David and I decided to remedy this lamentable situation.
I mean, glass painters have been staining glass for the best part of 800 years.
And the introduction of silver stain brought about a huge increase in its potential – for the simple reason you could now include two colours within a single piece of glass.
Freedom!
Seems a shame this knowledge should be lost. And it will be lost if folks continue their unsatisfactory ways with water and vinegar …
That’s why we teach a special course on silver stain.
It’s all online, so you can learn from anywhere in the world and at a time which suits you:
Will you have a look here.