Painted glass ?

Liam · Post by **Liam** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 8:31 pm

consider this panel. on the small red and white shield, the red and white crest/hat, and the blue lion shield. Are the white areas flashed glass that has been etched to clear, or can enamel be that good?http://community.webshots.com/s/image8/ ... sZN_ph.jpg
Liam

Moderator's note: I edited the message so that the image will come up as a link. - Paul

Mira · Post by **Mira** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 8:41 pm

Unfortunately, I cannot follow your link to the panel. Also, the link to your website appears to be CNN news.

Liam · Post by **Liam** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 8:54 pm

Thanks for editing the link for me. I can't seem to figure out the image thing, posting from webshots.

Webpage has been down for months too. Gremlins in my machine

Liam

Judy Schnabel · Post by **Judy Schnabel** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 9:47 pm

Copy and paste the link and you'll get it.

Paul Tarlow · Post by **Paul Tarlow** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 10:59 pm

Liam wrote:Thanks for editing the link for me. I can't seem to figure out the image thing, posting from webshots.

Webpage has been down for months too. Gremlins in my machine

Liam

A number of the image hosting sites will not let you embed a photo in another web page -- that's why sometimes you need to just link to it.

Joseph Tracy · Post by **Joseph Tracy** » Sat Jan 31, 2004 4:34 pm

This panel looks to me like a combination of painting (not enamel) ,silverstain, and acid etching. However, enamels can give very vibrant, strong, even colors. Blues, in my experience, are particularly reliable. Also if you enamel the back with an even application( use badger blender), and paint the front with a traditional opaque glass paint, it looks very glassy. Experiments are very helpful in learning to work with enamels.

Liam · Post by **Liam** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 12:50 am

enamel the back... that makes scence, the glass provides the glossy even look. Mcgrain does some great stuff with enamel so I know it must be posible.

AVLucky · Post by **AVLucky** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 7:58 pm

Having worked with a lot of older painted windows, I would guess at first glance that this was etched flash, with painted trace lines and matting, and silver stain (for the yellow). It was a bit of a trick figuring out if the horizontal line across the middle of the crest was a leadline or not, and I would base my theory on that single line. If it is a leadline, then the blue lion is most likely etched flash. If it's not a leadline, the lion is probably enamel, because otherwise you couldn't have red, clear and blue in the same piece of glass.

I think that you can tell more by the design and the usage of colors rather than their vibrancy. Enamels can be very bright, and flash glass can come in pastel colors. Look to the layout of the leadlines to figure out where each piece of glass starts and stops. Within a single piece, if you are seeing a single color, plus clear, it's probably etched flash. Color plus clear plus yellow is probably etched flash with silverstain on the back. Keep in mind, too, that flash glass is not always color-on-clear. You'll see red-on-yellow, blue, or sometimes green; or blue-on-yellow; or rarer combinations too. Sometimes you really just have to see it in person to know for sure. But if you know some clues, you can make an educated guess.

As far as I know, use of enamels is far less common than use of etched flash. Also, in the pieces I have come across, if they use one color of enamel, they use 4 or 5. You'll see this in border designs a lot. The glass shapes are simple rectangles, but the enameling is fairly detailed. Or you might see elaborate enamel painting in a central large rectangle--something more "painterly" looking, with cathedral or opal glass bordering it.

Sorry for the long-winded reply! Do you have any idea of the age/origin of this panel? It's actually very nice.
AV

Liam · Post by **Liam** » Tue Feb 03, 2004 12:18 am

The more you can say about it the better, thanks . I really am facinated with old heraldic panels.
It is a picture I took out of a huge book of Heraldry, panels and cartoons, German I think. 18"x24" I would guess. The book must have been 100 years old itself. No photography of course, but coloured and non coloured cartoons. The book lives with Richard Millard but I did take several pictures. Let me know if you want copies emailed. my webpage is down right now so It will have to be sent. Several of the panels have inscriptions in German I think, so that may help you with figuring out where they came from.

Liam

Bert Weiss · Post by **Bert Weiss** » Tue Feb 03, 2004 2:50 am

My take is that it is etched flashed glass for the blue and the rest is simple brown/black grisaille on various tints and clear. The image on the screen that I am seeing, doesn't show much yellow, but if it is there, it is probably silver stained.

Liam · Post by **Liam** » Tue Feb 03, 2004 5:22 pm

Yes there is some silver staining, my pic is much better. With the etched flashed (acid etched I asume) can this be duplicated with sandblasting, or does it leave the glass too pitted for even matting. and if so I wonder if it could be warmed up just enough to smooth out the sand etching, but still maintain the size of the glass. Anyone?

Liam

Don Burt · Post by **Don Burt** » Tue Feb 03, 2004 5:59 pm

Liam wrote:Yes there is some silver staining, my pic is much better. With the etched flashed (acid etched I asume) can this be duplicated with sandblasting, or does it leave the glass too pitted for even matting. and if so I wonder if it could be warmed up just enough to smooth out the sand etching, but still maintain the size of the glass. Anyone?

Liam

I did a piece that utilizes sandblasted Lamberts flashes throughout. I cooked them at 1200 for a few minutes to make the clear parts clearer. It doesn't change the size of the glass enough to make a difference in leading-it-up. Heres a picture, but the photography misrepresents how clear the clear parts are.

http://www.geocities.com/frogacuda/lebodeco.html

AVLucky · Post by **AVLucky** » Tue Feb 03, 2004 6:41 pm

You might get different results depending on the coarseness of the grit you used to sandblast, but I think that in trying to matt a blasted piece of flash your difficulty would come from the stepped quality of the surface. Even if the layer of flash was very thin, if you sandblast you are most likely going to get a definite ridge between the blasted and non-blasted parts. Why not do it backwards? Matt on the non-flash side. I've also heard of people who matt with an airbrush. I don't know any of them personally (so no first- or even second-hand accounts of how well it works), but that sounds like it might help in your situation.

Liam · Post by **Liam** » Tue Feb 03, 2004 8:30 pm

yes that sounds pretty reasonable. blast and stain one side, trace and mat on the other.

More pics for you from that book, hope this works

http://community.webshots.com/album/114793451iYHVYi

"Book 7" looks like another example of etched flashed to me.

Liam

BobB · Post by **BobB** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 10:09 am

This has been an interesting thread. Could someone explain a few of the terms used.
What is flash, etched flash, Lambert flash, flash side?
And matt I assume is blasting or some other technique to give a matt finish?

Thanks,
BobB

Don Burt · Post by **Don Burt** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 11:02 am

BobB wrote:This has been an interesting thread. Could someone explain a few of the terms used.
What is flash, etched flash, Lambert flash, flash side?
And matt I assume is blasting or some other technique to give a matt finish?

Thanks,
BobB

Here a link to Lambert's Flashes.
http://www.lamberts.de/eflashed.htm

Here's a link to a (not very helpful) description of matting.

http://www.jaynehoustonproducts.com/Com ... Paints.doc

AVLucky · Post by **AVLucky** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 7:35 pm

Liam: I agree with you on the 'book7' image. What interested me was a piece of glass in the 'book6' image. In the column on the far right, there is a very subtle graduated blue that fades to clear at the bottom. I am pretty sure that the color is from enamel. It's got that slightly grainy texture, and the color fade would be a lot harder to achieve through etching.

BobB: In a nutshell, Flash glass is a base piece of sheet glass with a thinner overlay of color on top. Lamberts is a manufacturer of this kind of glass. The link in the previous post will show you some good examples. The flash side of the glass is the side with the thinner overlay on it. For example, you'll most often see red over clear. You can use a sandblaster or acid to etch away the top color and produce two colors within the same piece of glass. Matting refers to a painting technique in which a thin, even layer of paint is applied to the surface of the glass. It can be left as-is or partially worked away to create shading effects. You can see examples of this in some of Liam's links

Vic · Post by **Vic** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 5:18 pm

I hate to differ, but. It is not the hard to get a graded look with acid etching. It was done in nearly all the Tiffany window sunsets. They used red on clear and blue on clear plates and silver stain to achieve the effect.
The column (#6) looks to be etched blue flashed glass and then painted with trace paints.
#7 might be one piece of red on clear flashed that was etched to clear, painted with blue enamel, trace paint and silver stain.

AVLucky · Post by **AVLucky** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 7:01 pm

Yes, those are definite possibilities. It's hard to say without seeing the piece in person, though. In the column (#6), the grainy look could just as easily come from texture in the matting. And it's reasonable to think that in a panel where etching was used for a two-color effect, it might also be used for a fade effect. But wouldn't you agree that it might be done more quickly using enamel? Simplicity is dependent on the skill of the craftsman, but some techniques are just more efficient than others.

I hate to differ, but. It is not the hard to get a graded look with acid etching. It was done in nearly all the Tiffany window sunsets. They used red on clear and blue on clear plates and silver stain to achieve the effect.

From what I understand about Tiffany, his glass studios never actually made a profit and relied on the jewelry end of the business to stay afloat. When you prioritize art over money, you can do whatever the heck you want, no matter whether it's cost-effective. But this is not a Tiffany window, and we don't know the type of environment it was made in. I made my guess assuming that there was more of a production-minded ethic at work here, that's all.

Vic · Post by **Vic** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 3:15 pm

Tiffany & co. was/is the jewelry company. L.C. Tiffany was the glass and decorating company. They were 2 separate entities.
I would think that grading the color of the glass would be easier and faster to etch then to paint. First you can see exactly whats happening while etching. Depending on the glass and the strength of the acid, you can get done in 15 minutes or so. Painting will take that long, plus the fire, plus repainting if needed.