Stain on glass and How to apply It
So you decided to try to stain on glass? Great! It may sound difficult, but that's just a scare tactic. It's really very similar to cororing with crayons. It won't be a stained glass window, worthy of any of the chapels in Rome, but that's only because you are going to stain the glass, and not piece together solidly colored pieces into a window sash. You need a very minimul amount of supplies to get started. They should be available at your local art supply store. Even though I have purchased and used the paints they market to be used on glass, I really have not found a big difference in that over the acrylic paints that can be bought in 2 ounce bottles for crafts. I've tried them both, and I'm not finding it. You will also need 'liquid lead', a very thick paint, in a small bottle with a tapered cone shaped applicator. The first thing you will need to start stain on glass with, is your sheet of glass. For the sake of safety it's a very good measure to stick masking tape around the edge of the glass, overlapping both the front and back side of the glass, all four sides. Now you need an idea, which yoy may already have, if you came this far. If you don't, please feel free to use any or all of mine; you'll need to view the page on patterns. If you have the main subject of your painting in mind, you will need to make just a rough sketch of it on a sheet of paper close to the same size of the sheet of glass you are working with. If you have a pattern, enlarge it to the size you need. let us begin!
Tape your pattern or sketch for stain on glass, face down to the clean, and I mean really clean side of the glass. I use masking tape for this, and go all the way around the edge of the paper to hold it securly in place. Now, turn it over so that you will see the sketch on the other side of the glass. In an effort to protect the surrounding area, it's a good idea to have your work area covered with paper, or better yet, cardboard before you begin to stain on glass
Begin with the liquid lead, and using it like a pen, draw the outline of your pattern on to the glass. For me, it works best to squeeze out about a quarter of an inch, let the end of it stick to the glass, and continue the outline. The tip of the 'liquid lead bottle should rarely touch the glass while you're working. Because I am right handed, I try to begin in the upper left of the painting, working toward the lower right with the stain on glass. I'm going to begin with the grapes, the vine, and the leaves. As you can see, there were a few mishaps, where the liquid lead burped while working, leaving some not very wanted blobs where there should have been some graceful stems and branches.
This particular blob happened to be in a place where I was able to wipe it away with a small rag. It took several wipes.
Keep your glass absolutely clean WHILE working, too. Let's take a little break while what we have dries, then I'll show you how to clean up the rest of the burp blobs.
This is where the razor blade steps in. The first cut will be verticle to the sheet of glass. This is to avoid tearing of the paint, or stain in glass. Whoever said that the hardest part is getting started certainly knew what they were talking about!
Now I will need to go in horizontally with the razor to remove the unwanted paint. Hopefully there weren't too many blobs to remove, but if there are more, get them out now. 
Now, I think the paint will start with the grapes. As we're looking at the painting right now, my light source in the painting will come from the upper right, so I'm going to begin by putting a little reflection of the light in the upper right of some of the more protruding grapes, and blending it in to the purple of the grapes.
Now lets fill in the leaves of this masterpiece of a stain on glass painting. (Keep a positive attitude, and keep having fun doing it: that's what it's all about.) I'm going to use a darker green for this, because the colors of the things closest to the viewer are allmost always the brightest.
We're almost finished, so let's run with it. Now I'm going to show you how to end the stain on glass painting with a lighter more subtel green background than what we used on the leaves. I'm using a lighter green to start with, but mixing it with a little bright red to get a brownish tint. Very miniscule amount of red, and then some white to lighten it up, and push it back, behind the bunches of grapes. Keeping the paint very thin, I"m filling in all of the background. First I'm using a larger brush, a size 6, and painting in everywhere that I can fit with it. Now, I'll get back to the size 2 brush to paint in between the grapes and the leaves. Last, but not least, I'm going to drip water sporadically around on the painting, to look like raindrops, and tip the painting up(outside), to make the raindrops run down the glass.
Now wasn't this stain on glass a lot of fun? Your results can be seen by turning the painting around, and stepping back to get a look at it. Had to be worth the effort, and I would love to do another painting with you again! Return to how to paint in reverse on glass from stain on glass
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