Illuminate: brushes, paints & tools – The Glass Painter's Method: Courses

For Illuminate, the online foundation course we teach, here’s a checklist of the brushes, tools and paints you’ll need:

Brushes:

A 3-inch badger blender
A large Ron Ranson hake brush
A tracing brush

For your paint:

Reusche glass paint
Liquid gum Arabic
Small, clear glass pot
Large clear glass bowl
Jar or bowl for water – must be wide enough to fit your hake brush comfortably
Two palette knives
A glass palette

Other tools:

Highlighting stick
Painting bridge / arm-rest
Light-box
Optional for now: a kiln

And some glass.

That’s the overview.

In a moment, I’ll give you more detail.

Please remember that this book of ours is excellent:

The Glass Painter's Method: Brushes, Paints & Tools

It comes with 12 online videos so you see how we use the brushes, tools and paints.

You’ll find the book on Amazon, iTunes, Barnes & Noble, or you can order it from your bookseller.

The hardback is expensive – this is because it contains a lot of photographs – and the ebook costs just a few dollars.

Links here.

The book and ebook give you a lot of extra information and answer many questions we cannot answer here.

Onwards, now.

Brushes

Badger blender

Like either of these:

The wooden shaft is between 5 and 6 inches long (125 – 150 mm). This length permits you a firm yet flexible grip.

Be wise to this: some badger blenders cost a huge amount of money, the ones you see above do not cost a lot of money. They are perfect and could last 20 years.

Large Ron Ranson hake brush

Here, the brand is important – Ron Ranson. (We’ve tested others and they didn’t work as well for us.)

You need the ‘large’ size: it’s 1.75 inches across (45 mm).

Again, if you care for it, this is a long-lasting brush. It should last at least 5 years and could easily last for 10.

Tracing brush

We do most of our tracing with just one brush. It’s made by by Pro Arte, an English company. Don’t worry – they sell across the world.

The tracing brush we mostly use is the “Renaissance sable rigger”, size 2.

In the UK, we buy ours from Jackson’s Art Supplies. You can use the search box to search for “renaissance sable rigger”. Jackson’s product code for size 2 is BPRSR2.

You should buy several, because (unlike the badger blender and the hake brush) your tracing brushes do wear out every few months.

You could also get a size 1 and a size 3 though you won’t need them for this course.

If you can’t find a stockist in your country, what are this brush’s key features – the ones you must find in some other tracing brush? After all, there is nothing magical about the brushes we use:

Natural hair, in this case sable (not ox, pony or squirrel; not nylon)
A pointed tip (not flat, not fan-shaped, not a mop or a cat’s tongue or a chisel)
The overall length of hair is just under .75 inch (18 mm) – this is fairly short
Size 2 in a range which goes from 0 to 6
Slim, not round – just a slight swelling above the middle.

Pro Arte makes this “Renaissance” range for water-colour painters, not for glass painters: that’s another useful piece of information for you, because our own experience of tracing brushes made specifically for glass painters is they are bad to learn with.

That’s right: Pro Arte’s water-colour brushes are better for glass painting than a lot of so-called glass painting brushes.

A.S. Handover of London makes a similar range of short-length, pointed, sable brushes called “Series 99”. These are lovely brushes.

Another good alternative is made by Winsor & Newton. It’s called the “artists’ water-colour sable rigger” (sizes 2 and 1).

For your paint

Glass paint

We recommend you mix a lump of glass paint from glass paint made by Reusche, now owned by Schilling.

Our standard mix is about 3 parts Reusche tracing black (DE401) mixed with 1 part Reusche tracing brown (1134). If you can’t get this brown, umber brown (1139) or bistre brown (DE402) are fine. Reusche’s lead-free paints are also fine.

Here’s the Reusche/Schilling catalogue.

How much paint? At least 2 ounces / 50 grams of whatever black you choose, and one ounce / 25 grams of brown. Of course though, the more paint you have, the more you can practise.

To make your lump, you use water and gum Arabic (preferably liquid). We recommend Winsor & Newton: Amazon UK, Amazon US, Amazon CA.

To mix a small lump of glass paint – this is OK the first time you do it, to help you get a feel for what you’re doing – see this blog post here.

If (when) you become obsessive about your glass paint, see this ebook and 7 videos here.

Inside Illuminate, you’ll find an excerpt (3 videos) – plenty to get you going.

Small clear glass pot and large clear glass bowl

While you work, you use the small glass pot to cover your lump. You also use it to seal your lump when you’re not using it. The most important feature is: the pot has a flat lip (not a round one), because a flat lip makes good contact with the palette. In the US and Canada, a company called Marie Morin makes desserts you can buy in supermarkets: these are perfect to seal your paint. In the UK, there’s a company called Gü. You can also buy small pots from cooking shops, or Amazon.

You use the large glass bowl to mix your paint. Later, it helps keep your paint fresh when you double-seal it like you see above at the end of a painting session.

Wide jar or bowl for water while your painting

A wide jam jar is fine provided that it really is wide.

A low small heavy bowl like this is perfect:

Two palette knives

It helps to have two because, after mixing, or when you’ve finished for the day, you use one of them to scrape the other clean.

The handle is about 3 inches long, 3/4 inch wide (75 mm long, 85 mm wide): solid enough for a good, firm grip.

The blade is about 4 inches long and 1 inch wide. (100 mm long, 24 mm wide.) Wide enough to crush and grind your paint. Long enough that you don’t scrape your knuckles when you apply strong downward pressure. Yet the blade is still short enough for maximum efficiency.

Palette

We recommend glass whose dimensions are the size of A4 piece of paper, or bigger. (So a bit bigger than the size of a US letter.) Thus 279 mm by 210 mm. Or 300 mm by 300 mm. Our point is: not small. You require the space to mix and maintain your paint.

The glass must not be thin, else it could snap. So 4 mm thick at least.

Toughened or strengthened glass is excellent.

Sandblasted underneath is helpful since there are times when, with an illuminated light-box underneath, this change in texture will help your eye pick out your palette’s edges. (In the olden days, a sandblasted side also helped you grind your paint more quickly, but today’s glass paints are so well ground straight from the packet, the problem doesn’t arise.)

Your palette must have grozed or bevelled edges, or else you’ll slash your brushes which will cost you money and waste your time.

Other tools

Highlighting stick

You can sharpen the end of an old brush or use a wooden burger skewer or sandwich skewer, preferably bamboo because they will stay sharp for longer, are excellent to cut through the undercoat or to trim a trace-line:

Bridge / arm-rest

Your bridge does not need to be wider than an inch. But it must be strong enough that it doesn’t sag when you lean on it.

It should be at least 12 inches long (300 mm), one inch wide (25 mm). You’ll need to bear in mind how big your light box is: your bridge’s length must obviously be smaller, or else there is the risk you’ll topple over.

The bridge must be smooth where you will lean and glide your skin.

The legs must be higher than the glass you plan to paint: say, one inch high (25 mm). The higher the legs, the wider they must be, to ensure your bridge is stable.

You can make your own. Make one, test it and see how it is for you, then adjust it or make another.

Light-box

You can buy one or make your own. Here’s what you need:

Four strong blocks – each one about 6 inches high (150 mm).
A toughened sheet of opaque glass, rounded at the edges so you don’t cut yourself.
Some form of plug-in, splash-proof, low-heat lighting.

So you position the lighting on top of an existing, solid table. Place the blocks where they can support your glass. Rest a corner of the glass on each block.

And there you have it: a perfectly adequate, do-it-yourself solution – and one which you can also put away. Here’s David teaching in the US in 2014 (tough plastic flowerpots to support the toughened translucent glass, kitchen strip lights beneath):

Or you can just buy a length of white oilskin table-cloth and work with reflected light:

Clearly, white table-cloth won’t bounce back as much light as a light box does. But it will enable you to practise, practise, practise. So, if you don’t have a light-box, try this approach and see for yourself how well it works for you. Then learn from your experience.

Kiln

To finish this course, it’s not essential you fire your glass. Certainly, if you can fire your glass, that’s great. But if you can’t, it’s not a problem: you’ll have done the work and improved your technique. Your glass paint won’t be permanent and shiny: that’s all.

If you’ve got a kiln of your own, you’ll need to do some tests to get to know how hot you need to set it to get the desired result: this varies from kiln to kiln.
Reusche/Schilling glass paints need a top temperature of approx. 660 celsius / 1220 fahrenheit.

If you don’t have a kiln, some glass studios will hire you one.

Glass

Float glass / window glass is fine.

But light yellow or light green is far better.

Smooth glass, or only a little bit of texture. (Texture is not helpful while you’re learning.)

Suppliers

Now I want to tell you about the suppliers we’ve used or believe are reliable.

We don’t take commission from anyone.

Brushes

Jackson’s Art Supplies in the UK for Ron Ranson large hakes, Pro Arte Renaissance tracing brushes, Winsor & Newton artists’ water-colour sable riggers.

A.S. Handover in the UK for Series 99 short-haired, pointed, sable tracing brushes.

Cheap Joe’s Art Stuff in the US for Ron Ranson large hakes.

PELI Glass Products in the Netherlands: very attentive, nearly world-wide service) for Ron Ranson large hakes, Pro Arte Renaissance tracing brushes, 3 inch badger blenders, and just about everything for the glass painter. PELI even has a kit – everything you need to start with.