Stained Glass: Session nine

Fired sections of the leg, edges darkened with oil based paint

My previous painting session had now been fired and I needed to finish the last bits of Sooty's face; two spots for eyes and a roughly triangular mouth. However before I could do that I needed to check how the parts would fit together, so that I could allow for how the leading would work in relation to the position of eyes and the nose. This took most of the session, because I had to grind down the edges of each piece to ensure that I knew where these final painted elements would be. I have to do this with everything once construction begins in earnest, so it was useful to tackle one area to see how much work it would be.

In order to make sure the grinding was accurate, I went back to the cartoon and placed each piece on top, this time marking in white Sharpie any bits of glass that protruded beyond the black central line that represented the thickness of the centre of the leading's 'H' section.

Laying the glass back on the cartoon

Finally after fitting Sooty together again, I was able to simply paint the final areas in, using a lavender oil black paint mix and flooding technique. I had to work fast, because you don’t want the paint to dry on you and if your paint doesn’t flow, it’ll very likely blister when you fire it in the kiln. Each small area was flooded using re-mixed paint. Again this is important, in the time between one flooding and another the paint will dry and change consistency, so you have to mix every time, even though it feels as if you could get away with not doing this. 

Flooding applied to nose and eyes

Once the flooding had been done, I needed to fit everything back together again, (being careful not to disturb the eye and nose paint). I would then be able to assess whether or not the arm sections needed any more work; look at how the drawing of the leg was sitting within the new darker boarder and check whether or not I wanted to rework the area around the fused frit work that now constituted the heel. One possibility was to use silver stain to establish a glow around the frit edges, but I decided against this, hoping that the leading will visually cohere the various elements together.

The final part of the session was therefore spent putting the whole window together on the light-box, so that any final decisions could be made before the silver staining session. It was then agreed that I would undertake a short session to get that done before the Xmas break. Hopefully the two sections that make up Sooty's head will be fired by next week. 

 

The window is put together for on the light-box checking

Frit 'heel pain' section and leg which now has its edge darkened

Nb: I write these sessions up after reflecting on the event, using written notes and photographs taken on the day. The actual session was attended in mid December. 

See also:

Stained glass session one

Stained glass session two

Stained glass session three

Stained glass session four

Stained glass session five

Stained glass session six

Stained glass session seven

Stained glass session eight

Drawing on transparent drafting film