Please pass the salt

My watercolour pencil class has been continuing, and we've been learning different techniques.  Most recently it was "wet on wet", and our subject was this cactus. (Wouldn't be my first choice of subject matter.)

To start off, we transfer the image to our paper (scribble on the back of a photocopy then trace the outline of the image to our watercolour paper (140 pound cold press).  Once that's done, we use masking fluid with a teeny tiny brush to cover all the white areas of the cactus (dots on the flowers, needles on the leaves, etc).

Then, using a 1" brush, we wet the bulbs and the leaves.  In this wet area we paint a wash of yellow on the leaves and orange on the bulbs (to give it a sense of sunlight) and dry it with the trusty blowdryer.  We get the "paint" from the pencils which are grated using a tea strainer, and mixed with a small amount of water.

Then we wet the sky and paint it blue, orange and 3 shades of green in a freeform sort of way.

Here's where the salt comes in.  Sprinkling salt onto wet paint results in a textured effect and different types of salt yields different results.

Kosher salt on the left and table salt on the right

We're using salt to give our sky some texture, so we sprinkle salt all over the sky and let it dry naturally. Then it can be brushed off.

The next tricky part is to use our pencils to lightly draw colour onto the buds.  We shade the buds with an orangy-red, then a red, and finally a blue (for the shadows).  Once that's done, we use a damp brush to wet the colour, and hopefully blend the paint so it looks sort of natural.  That was the most difficult part for me - I think it requires quite a bit of practise to make the blending look natural.  Once the buds are done, we do the same sort of thing on the leaves, then remove the masking fluid, and add the shadows.

Quite a bit of work ... but fun.  Here's my finished piece.  After all the time spent on it, I've actually become kind of fond of the subject matter.

Let there be light

Final stages of my first stained glass project.  So far we’ve designed, cut, polished edges, leaded and soldered.  Today we finish soldering, mud and paint.

Soldering definitely covers a multitude of sins. In my “many angled” project, some of the intersections aren’t perfect.  The solder not only keeps the piece together, it can also fill in gaps.  That’s good news for me.

unsoldered joints

soldered joint

Now for the messy part…. mudding.  Take a bunch of plaster of paris, add some (non sanded) basic black grout and mix.  Then, add some turpentine (as a drying agent) and some linseed oil.  Mix all to the consistency of silly putty.

Plaster of Paris and grout

Instructor doing the messy work for us

Plop the mud on window and, using your fingers, push into all the edges of all the pieces.  If you think this is smelly (and it is) be thankful that we no longer use what early stained glass artisans used … horsehair, straw and manure.

After sprinkling plaster of paris on the mudded window (a la icing sugar), take a brush and buff off the extra mud. 

the soldered joints are shiny
before they are painted

From here we spend some time cleaning up the mud from the edges of the lead and the frame, and then paint the soldered joints black.  We’re done.  Yay!   My first project – completed and ready to display.

My take on stained glass (lead came) ... 

I loved the process – it’s tactile, finicky enough that you have to pay attention, and progress is easy to see.  I plan to do a couple more panels as practice, and then, hopefully, tackle a larger project… the side window and transom (only just learned what that is) of our front door!

Put down the Brush and pick up the Sharpie

My stained glass experience continues. This time I’m learning how to do stained glass using the traditional method – lead came. 

Why “came”? I used to think it was called lead CANE, but no.  According to the dictionary, “came” is a slender, grooved bar of lead for holding together the pieces of glass in windows of latticework or stained glass. Ah ha!

So far we have chosen our pattern and glass, cut the glass by scoring it with a cutter (and, in my case, a ruler since most of my pieces are straight instead of curved) then used special pliers to help it break. After sanding the edges we began the exciting part of actually building our piece.

We use horseshoe nails to hold the pieces in place while we fit the glass and cut the came for the next row.  Think of it like a big puzzle. You start at one end, and hopefully by the time you get to the opposite end all your lines are straight, and the pieces all match.

It’s a game of precision for sure. If the pieces are cut too small, you have to either add a spacer in the came so they fit, or else recut. If the pieces are too large, you need to sand them down – a time consuming process. 

glass cutter and horseshoe nails

glass edges are sharp - don't ask.

I thought I was clever to chose a pattern with straight lines.  What I didn’t realize (until last class) was that my straight lines also resulted in (the dreaded) angles.   Cutting the came so that the various intersections fit is challenging for sure.

lead came

It’s a fun class – there are 10 of us – 5 women and 5 men (including one engineer who seems to get the angles better than the rest of us). Next week the “leading” continues, then the last class is soldering.  Best part of all – no homework!