Crucial glass painting instructions for beautiful work – achieving the perfect paint mix.

These glass painting instructions mark the start of another exciting phase in your creative stained glass journey. You’ve chosen and bought the most appropriate type of paint for your painting glass project, and now it’s time to mix it up correctly so that you can add intricate detail and textures, bold brushstrokes and wild colour. But first an overview of mixing options…
glass painting intructions
You can mix enamels with various mediums, depending on what you’re trying to achieve. This can be a bit confusing as there are many variations, but broadly these fall into two categories: oil-based and water-based. There’s artistic and technical reasons for choosing different mediums – on the arty side, oil mixes are better for thicker, more definite lines whereas water is far more lively and spontaneous. On the techie side – you can save electricity and time by firing two layers at the same time if the first layer is oil-based and the top one water-based.
glass painting techniques
I’ll start you off with glass painting instructions for the most commonly used water-based paint mix – your skills can then be adapted for other recipes.

Water-based paint mix

Glass Painting Instructions - What you need:
Glass palette (ideally 6mm thick and half sandblasted) Palette knife. Water jar. Glass paint. Gum Arabic (icing sugar works as a good substitute). Pipette.

Step one: Proportions

It’s a good idea to be fairly generous with the amount of paint you mix. Don’t worry about waste, it will keep if you place it under a jam jar with a water seal and can be rehydrated the following day. Put a tablespoonful of paint on your palette and pat it down to a 5mm ‘pancake’. Then take about a sixteenth of a teaspoon of powdered gum Arabic – yes, a tiny bit! – on the end of your palette knife and tap it gently over the flattened paint, so it looks like the first falling of powdery snow.
glass painting

Step two: Dry mix

With your palette knife, mix the gum Arabic or icing sugar thoroughly together, grinding out any dry lumps.

Step three: Add water

glass paint Use a pipette to add water – it’s more controllable and stays clean. Make a well in the middle of your dry enamel and gum Arabic, and start adding water a bit at a time. You don’t want to add too much otherwise you’ll have to add more paint and more water and more paint… Take all the paint up and mix to a thick yogurty consistency.

Step four: glass painting instructions - Grinding

Thankfully enamels these days are ground extremely finely before we even get our mitts on them – otherwise you’d be up for half an hour of arm ache. Instead, a few minutes of dedicated grinding of the paint stained glass paint should suffice. The palette knife should be used to grind the paint in a circular motion, with some downward pressure. It’s ready when it’s a smooth paste. Repeatedly scrape it up together neatly – you don’t want it all over your palette. You don’t want too much water at this stage – the main bulk of the paint is used as a ‘reservoir’ from which you take small amounts as needed from the edge before watering it down further.

Step five: glass painting instructions - Testing

I expect you’re wondering when in these glass painting instructions you’re going to learn just what you’re doing with icing sugar?! The gum or sugar is used both as a vehicle to help the paint flow and to adhere it to the surface of the glass. You need to have the correct ratio, otherwise the paint will be too sticky and bubble when firing, or not stick sufficiently to the glass. This is the time to test it and see. Use a glass paintbrush with a bit of additional water and make a couple of lines with the paint on clean glass. Let them dry and then gently, with a dry fingertip, rub over the surface of the paint. It should be resistant, but not stubborn to your touch. Try scratching into it with a toothpick – it should come off fairly easily. If you have trouble scratching it off, you have too much gum, and need to add more paint. Conversely, if it falls off with hardly a touch, you need to add more gum. Mix this with a little water before adding to the mix, and re-test. Testing paint isn’t a once-only job – you should often be giving it a quick test to make sure its’ composition hasn’t radically changed.

Found these glass painting instructions useful? Then you’ll want to read the illustrated article Glass Painting Tips I’ve compiled especially for you!

You can receive it by joining the merry band of ‘Cutting Edge’ subscribers who are regularly: