Stained Glass Work Part 2

(1) They are too light.

For tapping our heavy antique and slab-gla.s.ses we wish we had a heavier tool.

(2) They are too thin in the handle for comfort, at least it seems so to me.

(3) The three gashes cut out of the head of the tool decrease the weight, and if these were omitted the tool would gain. Their only use that I can conceive of is that of a very poor subst.i.tute for pliers as a "groseing" tool, if one has forgotten one's pliers. But (as Serjeant Buzfuz might say) "who _does_ forget his pliers?"

The whole question of the handle is complicated by the fact that some cutters rest the tool on the forefinger and some on the middle finger in tapping, and that a handle the sections of which are calculated for the one will not do equally well for the other.

But the whole thing resolves itself into this, that if we could get a tool, the handle of which corresponded in all its curves, dimensions, and sections with the old-established diamond, I think we should all be glad; and if the head, wheel, and pivot were all made of the quality and material of which fig. 1 is now made, but with the handle as I describe, many of us, I think, would be still more glad; and if these remarks lead in any degree to such results, they at least of all the book will have been worth the writing, and will probably be its best claim to a white stone in Israel, as removing one more solecism from "this so-called twentieth century."

I shall now leave this subject of cutting for the present, and describe, up to about the same point, the processes of painting, taking both on to a higher stage later--as if, in fact, I were teaching a pupil; for as soon as you can cut gla.s.s well enough to cut a piece to paint on, you should learn to paint on it, and carry the two things on step by step, side by side.

CHAPTER III

Painting (elementary)--Pigments--Mixing--How to Fill the Brush--Outline--Examples--Industry--The Needle and Stick--Completing the Outline.

The pigments for painting on gla.s.s are powders, being the oxides of various minerals, chiefly iron. There are others; but take it thus--that the iron oxide is a red pigment, and the others are introduced, mainly, to modify this. The red pigment is the best to use, and goes off less in the firing; but, alas! it is a detestably ugly _colour_, like red lead; and, do what you will, you cannot use it on white gla.s.s. Against clear sky it looks pretty well in some lights, but get it in a sidelight, or at an angle, and the whole window looks like red brick; while, seen against any background except clear sky, it always looks so from all points of view. There are various makers of these pigments. Some gla.s.s-painters make their own, and a beginner with any knowledge of chemistry would be wise to work in that direction.

I need not discuss the various kinds of pigment; what follows is a description of my own practice in the matter.

_To Mix the Pigment for Painting._--Take a teaspoonful of red tracing-colour, and a rather smaller spoonful of intense black, put them on a slab of thick ground-gla.s.s about 9 inches square, and drop clean water upon them till you can work them up into a paste with the palette-knife (fig. 18); work them up for a minute or so, till the paste is smooth and the lumps broken up, and then add about three drops of strong gum made from the purest white gum-arabic dissolved in cold water. Any good chemist will sell this, but its purity is a matter of great importance, for you want the maximum of adhesiveness with the minimum of the material.

Mix the colour well up with the knife; then take one of those long-haired sable brushes, which are called "riggers" (fig. 19), and which all artists'-colourmen sell, and fill it with the colour, diluting it with enough water to make it quite thin. Do not dilute all the pigment; keep most of it in a tidy lump, merely moist, as you ground it and not further wetted, at the corner of your slab; but always keep a portion diluted in a small "pond" in the middle of your palette.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 18.]

_How to Fill the Brush with Pigment._--Now you must note that this is a heavy powder floating free in water, therefore it quickly sinks to the bottom of your little "pond." _Each time you fill your_ _brush you must "stir up the mud_," for the "mud" is what you want to get in your brush, and not only so, but you want to get your brush _evenly full_ of it from tip to base, therefore you must splay out the hairs flat against the gla.s.s, till all are wet, and then in taking it off the palette, "twiddle" it to a point quickly. This takes long to describe, but it does not take a couple of seconds to do. You must have the patience to spend so much pains on it, and even to fill the brush very often, nearly for each touch; then you will get a clear, smooth, manageable stroke for your outline, and save time in the end.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 19.]

_How to Paint in Outline._--Make some strokes (fig. 20) on a piece of gla.s.s and let them dry; some people like them to stick very tight to the gla.s.s, some so that a touch of the finger removes them; you must find which suits you by-and-by, and vary the amount of gum accordingly; but to begin, I would advise that they should be just removable by a moderately hard rub with the finger, rather less hard a rub than you close a gummed envelope with.

Practise now for a time the making of strokes, large and small, dark and light, broad and fine; and when you have got command of your tools, set yourself the task of doing the same thing, _copying an example placed underneath your bit of gla.s.s_. You will find a hand-rest (fig. 21) an a.s.sistance in this.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 20.]

It is difficult to give any list of examples suitable for this stage of gla.s.s, but the kind of line employed on the best _heraldry_ is always good for the purpose. The splendid ill.u.s.trations of this in Mr. St.

John-Hope's book of the stall-plates of the Knights of the Garter at Windsor, examples of which by the author's courtesy I am allowed to reproduce (figs. 22-22A), are ideal for bold outline-work, and fascinatingly interesting for their own sake. In most of these there is not only excellent practice in _outline_, and a great deal of it, but, mixed with it, practice also in flat washes, which it is a good thing to be learning side by side with the other.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 21.]

And here let me note that there are throughout the practice of gla.s.s-painting _many_ methods in use at every stage. Each person, each firm of gla.s.s-stainers, has his own methods and traditions. I shall not trouble to notice all these as we come to them, but describe what seems to me to be the best practice in each case; but I shall here and there give a word about others.

For instance: if you use sugar or treacle instead of gum, you get a rather smoother-working pigment, and after it is dry you can moisten it as often as you will for further work by merely breathing on the surface; and perhaps if your aim is _outline only_, it may be well to try it; but if you wish to pa.s.s shading-colour over it you must use gum, for you cannot do so over treacle colour; nor do I think treacle serves so well for the next process I am to describe, which here follows.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 22.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 22A.]

_How to complete the Outline better than you possibly can by One Tracing._--When you take up a bit of gla.s.s from the table, after having done all you can to make a correct tracing, you will be disappointed with the result. It will have looked pretty well on the table with the copy showing behind it and hiding its defects, but it is a different thing when held up to the searching daylight. This must not, however, discourage you. No one, not the most skilful, could expect to make a perfect copy of an original (if that original had any fineness of line or sensitiveness of touch about it) by merely tracing it downwards on the bench. You must put it upright against the daylight, and mend your drawing, freehand, faithfully by the copy.

These remarks do not, in a great degree, apply to the case of hard outlines specially prepared for literal translation. I am speaking of those where the outline is, in the artistic sense, sensitive and refined, as in a Botticelli painting or a Holbein drawing, and to copy these well you want an easel.

For this small work any kind of frame with a sheet of gla.s.s in it, and a ledge to rest your bit of gla.s.s on and a leg to stand out behind, will do, and by all means get it made (fig. 23); but do not spend too much on it, for later on you will want a bigger and more complicated thing, which will be described in its proper place--that is to say, when we come to it; and we shall come to it when we come to deal with work made up of a number of pieces of gla.s.s, as all windows must be.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 23.]

This that you have now, not being a window but a bit of gla.s.s to practise on, what I have described above will do for it.

_A note to be always industrious and to work with all your might._--I advise you to put this work on an easel; but this is not the way such work is usually done;--where the work is done as a task (alas, that it could ever be so!) it is held listlessly in the left hand while touched with the right; but no artist can afford to be at this disadvantage, or at any disadvantage.

Fancy a surgeon having to hold the limb with one hand while he uses the lancet with the other, or an astronomer, while he makes his measurement, bunglingly moving his telescope by hand while he pursues his star, instead of having it driven by the clock!

You cannot afford to be less keen or less in earnest, and you want both hands free--ay! more than this--your whole body free: you must not be lazy and sit glued to your stool; you must get up and walk backwards and forwards to look at your work. Do you think art is so easy that you can afford to saunter over it?

Do, I beg you, dear reader, pay attention to these words; for it is true (though strange) that the hardest thing I have found in teaching has been to get the pupil to take the most reasonable care not to hamper and handicap himself by omitting to have his work comfortably and conveniently placed and his tools and materials in good order. You shall find a man going on painting all day, working in a messing, muddling way--wasting time and money--because his pigment has not been covered up when he left off work yesterday, and has got dusty and full of "hairs"; another will waste hour after hour, cricking his neck and squinting at his work from a corner, when thirty seconds and a little wit would move his work where he would get a good light and be comfortable; or he will work with bad tools and grumble, when five minutes would mend his tools and make him happy.

An artist's work--any artist's, but especially a gla.s.s-painter's--should be just as finished, precise, clean, and alert as a surgeon's or a dentist's. Have you not in the case of these (when the affair has not been too serious) admired the way in which the cool, white hands move about, the precision with which the finger-tips take up this or that, and when taken up use it "just _so_," neither more nor less: the spotlessness and order and perfect finish of every tool and material, from those fearsome things which (though you prefer not to dwell on their uses) you cannot help admiring, down to the snowy cotton-wool daintily poked ready through the holes in a little silver beehive? Just such skill, handling, and precision, and just such perfection of instruments, I urge as proper to painting.

_What Tools are wanted to complete the Outline._--I will now describe those tools which you want at this stage, that is, _to mend your outline with_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 24.]

You want the brush which you used in the first instance to paint it with, and that has already been described; but you also want points of various fineness to etch it away with where it is too thick; these are the needle and the stick (fig. 24); any needle set in a handle will do, but if you want it for fine work, take care that it be sharp. "How foolish," you say; "as if you need tell us that." On the contrary,--nine people out of ten need telling, because they go upon the a.s.sumption that a needle _must_ be sharp, "as sharp as a needle," and cannot need sharpening,--and they will go on for 365 days in a year wondering why a needle (which _must_ be sharp) should take out so much coa.r.s.er a light than they want.

Now as to "sticks"; if you make a point of soft wood it lasts for three or four touches and then gets "furred" at the point, and if of very hard wood it slips on the gla.s.s. Bamboo is good; but the best of all--that is to say for broad stick-lights--is an old, sable oil-colour brush, clogged with oil and varnish till it is as hard as horn and then cut to a point; this "clings" a little as it goes over the gla.s.s, and is most comfortable to use.

I have no doubt that other materials may be equally good, celluloid or horn, for example; the student must use his own ingenuity on such a simple matter.

_How to Complete the Outline._--With the tools above described complete the outline--by adding colour with the brush where the lines are too fine, and by taking it away with needle or stick where they are too coa.r.s.e; make it by these means exactly like the copy, and this is all you need do. But as an example of the degree of correctness attainable (and therefore to be demanded) are here inserted two ill.u.s.trations (figs. 25 and 26), one of the example used, and the other of a copy made from it by a young apprentice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 25.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 26.]

CHAPTER IV

Matting--Badgering--How to preserve Correctness of Outline--Difficulty of Large Work--Ill-ground Pigment--The Muller--Overground Pigment--Taking out Lights--"Scrubs"--The Need of a Master.