The Messenger

During the current flood, this is a piece of glass I’m currently painting…

After the second firing.

^  I’ve painted the outline with 1109 Ancient Brown, then fired it on.  Next I’ve applied the first shading matte, using the same 1109 >

Muller and colour chips.

To achieve the shade of matting I want, I gauge the progress of shading by comparing previously made colour chips with the work in progress.  This gives me a good indication of the how the shading will appear after firing.

Glass muller and colour chips.

The third shading matte can now be applied.  The picture below shows the paint being applied with a mop…

Gathering up a gob of paint.

Applying paint with a mop.

Paint of a thin-ish but sticky consistency is applied and then matted with a badger…

When the paint is dry, I firstly remove paint from the unwanted areas using tools such as scrubs (various), a sharpened bamboo stick or a sewing needle lashed to a stick.  In subsequent paintings I’ll add coloured enamels and stains and the messenger will come to life.

Shading…

^  Last shading firing.  So to get this far I’ve painted the outline with 1109 Ancient Brown and completed three shading steps with the same paint.  Each shading step is one firing schedule to fuse the paint onto the glass at 650 degrees centigrade.

After each firing, the glass is cooled slowly to anneal it, this is done by means of a computerised controller that regulates the rate of cooling.

The final step is to paint in the colours blue and green with enamel paint.  Silver stain is painted on the back of the glass and fired stain-side down on the kiln shelf.  Enamel paints fire at 565 degrees centigrade.  Throughout the firings, whiting is sifted onto the kiln shelf so that the glass doesn’t stick to the bare ceramic shelf, also because the silver stain will seep into the whiting.  After the final firing the whiting is scraped up and fresh whiting applied for the next job.

Fini!

A friend was asking about the tools and dishes I use for preparing paint so here ya go friend, shown below is the glass dish in which the powdered paint is mixed and ground with a muller.  Left of that is one of the cheapo plastic picnic plates I use to cover the dish, after use.

The lip on the dish fits snuggly into the recess in the plastic plate and stops it falling off.  I stack the dishes four high and they stay wet for days, it takes little work to revive the paint.  If it dries out completely I add some water to the paint the night before to let it soak in.

The picture below shows some of the other tools and brushes I use; palette knife, colour chips, muller, scrubs, bamboo sticks, steel points lashed to a stick… these are the tools I use for shading.

Tools, colour chips and paraphernaliae.

The image I want to project is that there is always good news waiting for you; so you’d better make sure you’re always prepared to receive it or you’ll miss out!

Hence the message is; don’t worry, God knows you are exactly where he wanted you to be placed.

On 22oct08 at 1400GMT I’ll have completed fifty-five revolutions of the sun.  I am truly blessed that God has spared my life that I can share this message with you.  I wish you peace and blessings in your life.