Problems with Glass Painting and Patina

by Joan
(United States)

I have just begun traditional stained glass painting. I finished and kiln fired several pieces with Reusche glass paints, copper foiled them together, soldered, and lastly put patina on the lead seams. The patina discolored the painted glass and made the surface gray and noticeable and obvious. What went wrong and how can I avoid this?
Thank-you

Milly's reply:
This is a brilliant question Joan, thanks. Why? Because it gives me the chance to warn everyone against using black patina with glass paint – the patina contains nitrate acid and will remove fired glass paint!
I don’t know why there aren’t any warnings about this on the black patina bottles. Perhaps it’s because the copper foil technique is more commonly used for stained glass work that hasn’t been painted, and so a warning is not deemed necessary? There should be one on there.
I think you were lucky that your painted work didn’t disappear all together, instead of just going gray – Reusche glass paints are the highest quality so maybe that’s why. I’ve heard of other glass artists losing painted work all together with black patina (Novacan in particular).
You can neutralise the effects of it with baking soda, but it might be too late to rescue your ‘gray’ paint Joan – you really have to do it immediately.
As for the patinas – the copper one doesn’t have this effect on glass paint, so in future you could try using that – or learn leading and blacken it with graphite!
Sorry I can’t offer a fix, but good luck with your future glass painting projects.


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