Original subtitles

Welcome back to the studio for the intermediate and advanced techniques of enamel painting.

I'm going to be using these Englays vitreous enamel paints once again and I want to show

you a little bit more detail about how different mediums can affect the colour of particularly

fugitive colours and they tend to be the reds and purples.

So I'm going to take say turquoise and purple red and show you the effect on a tile of using

different mediums.

Now with turquoise there's absolutely no problem.

I've got different media labelled along here and you can see that there's no change in

colour at all.

Turquoise is very stable along with most of these colours in the sunshine and ceradel

range.

But when it comes to the purple red, this one, which is used in portrait painting and

is a lovely colour to use in any sort of painting, you can see there's quite a dramatic change

in many of the media that I've used.

And what I'm looking for is a really steady pink like for paraffin for example, rosemary

oil and it's something you probably need to do yourself.

If you get a different medium, don't expect it to behave in the way that the previous medium

has behaved.

You need to do a test.

So for this I would take just a little test tile like this and anchor it with some blue

tack, ticky tack, whatever you call it and then try something like sewing machine medium

for example.

This is something that the Russian painters use all the time.

It looks yellow, it's very very runny but it's amazing how much paint it holds when

you add paint by grinding.

So just going to take a little bit of the purple red, put it on a tile like that, just

a tiny bit.

That's all it needs for a test.

And I just need some paper towel to wipe the palette knife, keep that clean.

My spatula is going to have some sewing machine oil there, just next to it as before.

I don't need to use all of it having put that out, just put the water to one side and just

blend enough and you can see that just a little bit and you've ground the paint which is fine

already at 325 mesh.

When I pick it up like that it will form a little bit of a lump like toothpaste which

is ideal for painting from because if you make it runny like that it's just going to

be hopeless.

The colour will be really diffuse and what you need is intensity of colour in the mix

that you've got.

So I'm going to wipe this section away and work from the same machine medium here.

So I'm going to take a miniaturist brush now and this is a number one, here's a zero and

here's a number two.

So in that order the two is the largest one.

I've got these tubes on which could be straws as well and just pull those off and then you

can see the brushes.

People think that we paint with one hair of the brush, no.

If you did that you just couldn't hold enough paint on the brush so it's conical the shape

and that means that it's a bit like a pen that the paint is driven down the brush to

the fine tip and there could be just one hair at the very tip that you're working but that's

what makes it such a beautiful brush that holds the tip.

If you're testing brushes it's really important to make sure that that tip is a point and

hasn't split already.

So synthetic brushes are fine as long as they make that tip at the end.

So you're going to be using the same medium here to wash the brush.

Just put that to one side and first of all I'm going to put some into the medium and

the brush is already clean so that's fine and then I'm going to roll the brush in the

paint that I've mixed up and transfer across to the test piece and it's just going to be

a little test like that, like the line that I did before, just to show how the paint flows

and you can see that there are kind of little lines within because as I bounce the brush

up and down it's as if there's like veins on the leaves I'm leaving behind and that's

because this paint in the medium, the medium is an open oil which means it takes a long

time to evaporate and therefore that's excellent for working pieces like portraits where you

need to do many many hours on the piece before you fire it.

You want it to stay open to accept more paint.

It takes a long long time to dry and you can also, because it's sewing machine oil, it

means that you can lay down quite dense little dots of colour and they will stay there unlike

some medium, other mediums that I'll show you.

So this is just one example.

You can do some pointillism which is very rough here but just to give you an idea that

would have to be so fine that you didn't see the dots but working quickly you get the idea

how the sewing machine medium works really well for that.

So just wipe off the brush and then use zest it for the solvent.

So this is something you've got in your pack and I just wipe the brush on the tissue and

then into the zest it so that I've got a clean brush now.

So that goes on there and I'll put the sewing machine medium away there with the lid.

Now you could make yourself a chart to just do tests, scientifically really isn't it,

looking at the different media down the side here and then how they behave along the top

and how you like them yourself.

So if you've got something like the two water-based media you'll know that uni-media dries very

quickly and glycerol which I'm going to be using today, that takes much longer to dry.

It's more open as a medium, takes longer, less evaporation goes on and therefore you've

got longer time to work it and it takes longer to drive off the glycerol at the kiln.

The pros and cons of using oil and water-based media are that if you use water-based generally

it's going to be quick work, glycerol will take a little bit longer but with oil, genuine

oil it's going to take longer to dry and therefore they're open media and they'll accept more

oil and the paint will stay wetter for longer which is an advantage.

But against it would be that putting sewing machine oil into a kiln when it's drying it's

not very nice smelling those vapours so you've got to be careful of your health.

Some other oils like lily oil and spike lavender oil they smell really nice.

My studio smells more of pine oil because that's the one that I trained with and I like

it very much and it just harmonises with my speed of working so it would dry within a

day and my paints are mixed for that day.

So I'll try another medium here which will be that pine oil which is called painting

medium from Victram Signum in UK and it has got that distinctive smell of pine in it.

So we'll just take another little bit of the purple red, the fugitive purple red which

is used for testing and this time put some pine oil beside it.

Now you can see that that holds its shape like a blob and that's because the oil is

much thicker than the sewing machine which flooded.

So here we've got a close up showing pine oil painting medium next to the paint, the

purple red and you can see that it's holding its shape like a little mound where the sewing

machine oil which is even more open and very runny just spread everywhere.

So I'm going to wipe away the sewing machine oil and this time blend the purple red with

the painting medium just a bit at a time and to me the lovely smell of pine oil is coming

off here.

I don't know what you think Oscar, do you like that or not?

Oh it's a lovely smell.

A fresh forest.

Right 100% of us here like the smell of pine oil.

So it's really gorgeously glossy, it's a bit like silkscreen printing ink I think, the

look of it.

I've mixed way too much but at least you can see what that dollop looks like and I haven't

put too much in so although I put all that painting medium there I haven't mixed it all

in. I'm just going to wipe that away now and then roll the brush into the paint mix.

So that's dipped into the solvent, clean it and zest it and bring over the paint medium

and put the brush in there and wipe it so that it's a damp brush before I roll it into here.

Now you'd never put zest it into the paint mix, it will spoil the colour.

Only use the medium that's in there already.

So painting medium next, you'll see the silkiness going down here and that's why I like it so

much because I think I can get a smoother wash like this by just gently pulling the paint

down where with sewing machine as you saw it shows every little stroke of the brush

brushing.

So that's silk here, could spend more time on that.

As I said before when you've got your first layer down it's like the icing on the cake

and then you can add more colour to intensify it so that that colour is darker at the top

and then you're working down towards the half tone.

So that's blended beautifully.

So I would say to me painting medium, the rate of evaporation is good, the viscosity

is good, the runniness and it's not too runny and I like the way you can use brush strokes

on it.

And when it fires up it will give a lovely pinky colour.

Here it is in the bottom right hand corner of the chart that I made.

So there's the good pink and when you study the chart in my book you'll see that I've

got the sewing machine medium up here.

And so there's sewing machine medium, paraffin oil, pine oil and instead of paraffin oil

you could actually use Johnson's baby oil because that's paraffin based.

You can get paraffin oil from the pharmacy because I think it's used for stomach problems

or something and it's also used for cats that have got fur balls to bring the fur ball up

if they're coughing on it.

So just get rid of the painting medium and show you how paraffin oil works.

So once again a little touch of the paint transferred to there.

And then some paraffin oil just placed alongside.

And that holds its shape quite well but because I'm here noticing that it is slightly more

runny so it's less viscous than the pine oil but it's more so, it's stickier than the sewing

machine oil.

So just going to mix a little bit, blend that in.

When it comes as Johnson's baby oil I think it is runnier so whatever else they've put

in it doesn't upset the paint but they obviously make it go further.

Just put that down there.

Holds its shape quite well because I didn't slud it with the medium.

I'll leave a little bit there to roll the brush in.

It's possible to work off one little tile like this.

I'm going to wash the brush in zest it but make sure I've dried it so no zest it goes

into the paraffin oil.

And then roll the brush in the paraffin oil and lay down the paint like this.

To me it's behaving between these two.

It's showing some streakiness left by the brush strokes but it's also making quite a

good wash.

So this is one that I recommend and when I was teaching in the States we used this but

I felt it was safe because we were firing the pieces outside.

And so please make sure if you're using sewing machine oil or paraffin oil or any of these

really that you've got good ventilation in the room.

I'm afraid you'll have to keep the windows open or have an extractor fan or something.

The final medium here that I'm going to try is glycerol which you have in your kit that

I've recommended because it's water based.

So instead of having the zest it it's just going to be water from here.

I meant to mention that other solvents could be white spirit but incredibly fierce smell.

Nobody really likes that.

Or you could use pure, well it's not so pure alcohol now which is called surgical spirit

from the pharmacy and that's used for cleaning wounds.

In UK it has a 15 pound tariff on it but if you buy it or as we used to buy it on the

continent it was just a couple of quid and it's now 70% purity but it used to be 97.

It just shows how things have changed because of the pandemic.

So I don't know what the charge would be but you could bring back this pure alcohol in

bottles about two litres was the maximum and it was sold so cheaply because and I think

it is as well in the States because it's used for preserving fruit.

So I've seen it in the supermarket by the litre very very cheap and probably that's

what I'd go for.

It's no smell at all.

So here I'm now going to add some purple red.

You just want a little again.

And then blend just a bit of it to see how it takes.

See the way those balls of powder scatter they've just got to be gathered in mashed down.

And as you work the paint it becomes thixotropic is the word because the act of grinding makes

it runnier.

And after a while it forms more of a lump like toothpaste.

So this one being the final one just wash the brush in the water solvent then into the

glycerol.

Roll the paint into the glycerol paint mix and then just apply this and that's behaving

really nicely.

It's a very smooth silky look and I like that very much and that's why I've recommended

it to you.

So we'll just put a little bit more at the top end and it's super saturated you wouldn't

want it any thicker than that otherwise it won't fire properly.

So very good to just work it down like this going to the half tone at the bottom and then

wash the brush and that's the sample test that's all you need to do really rather than a chart.

So I'll just get the tacky stuff off the back and next time you'll see us at the kiln.

Here's the test piece sitting on the titanium mesh for a quick firing.

I'm going to lay it down there I've got the blue glasses on just to shield my eyes from

the infrared of the kiln to demonstrate safety.

I'm going to open the kiln door and just present the tile in there so it's not a shock just

for drying off the oil.

Now this is actually evaporating the oil isn't it?

So you won't see steam rising you've got the oil vapour coming off when you see that.

If you can see that Oscar can you?

Just about.

So as you do that it's going to be quite chastely now just a last little bit of vapour probably

coming off the sewing machine oil at the moment because that is the heaviest oil.

And obviously at this end where I put more paint and more medium that's going to take

longer to dry off so just make sure that all that's gone otherwise the oil driving off

in the kiln with the heat is going to spit off the paint and spoil the work.

Just check that that's all off.

Yep that's ready to go so it's going to go at the back of the kiln where it's hot

just going to use that spatula to lay it down gently and then shock the kiln quickly and

then the next time you'll see it come out of the kiln when it's 750 just like everything

else for 1382.

Right I've got the cold tile back here at the bench and it's really interesting what's

happened here.

I'm going to quickly label up how I painted down the medium so this one first one was

sewing machine oil then it was painting medium then it was paraffin oil and finally glycerol

and using the marker pen you'll notice or with a sharpie that it burnt out in the kiln

and that can be really useful because you can mark up your tile and then you can paint

within those lines knowing that the lines are going to disappear.

So you can see that the successful pinks are up this end sewing machine oil painting medium

very successful paraffin oil and glycerol not so good.

Now another factor in this fugitive red is the actual base that you're using and the

bases that you have those who bought the kit it's from AJ Wells in UK and you can see that

all of these are beautifully pink.

Here's the glycerol compared with the test base not successful it's gone brown and here's

the liquid paraffin oil and here it is brown so you can see quite dramatically what a change

that makes and it may not matter if you're not using these fugitive colours but if you

are it's really well worth getting the right base on there and it says in my book the bases

that I recommend are DW1 dial white and a medium white and a couple of medium whites

T6 is a good one and you'll find your own as well so as long as you've tested them out

that's fine.

So I've done lots of tests over the years and I kept them from the student days and

it's really good to refer back to them from time to time.

This was using first of all making a swatch of colours with a palette and the colours

are just mixed colours and then of course there's the very detailed one that I've made

of my palette using sunshine and ceradel so I've got the pure colours up the side here

and I've got them repeated along the bottom so I've given them a number so here's number

17 which is this black here's the strong black here's the half tone black and then mixing

it with white you can read the grid as you go up and along so whatever colour you choose

if it's reed green then mixed with something like orange you're coming along here and

you'll find the mix there which is a lovely smoky sort of khaki colour so just get familiar

with your paints and what they can do and then the brush strokes here was an exercise

for actually stippling out so that you've got the pale stipple at one end and the intense

colour at the other end and it's been tidied up with the brush after the painting you just

dip the brush into some medium and dry it so using a damp brush and just go down the side

like that and then you've got a fabulous band of colour which everybody would think well

how did you do that but you can remove the paint so easily because it's on this glassy

base so here are more tests and more colours that we used when we were learning and going

into the palest sort of colours there just to see how it holds the colour in the kiln

firing because that's the other factor you've got the medium the base and the firing temperature

and that's why I recommend 750 or 1382 fahrenheit but you need to know that some pieces fire

more quickly obviously if it's a piece as big as that with a one millimeter piece of

steel there it's going to fire much more slowly than a piece that just has half a millimeter

there that's going to be a very quick firing and if you left it in too long then it would

begin to the paint would drop into the white and it would begin to burn out and go lacy

so this needs watching more closely it may fire quicker than 750 as this one did so I've

got a spike lavender oil on the end which came from held of harrogate that are now held

of holland and it's the spike lavender that is the beautiful oil that is collected from

the leaves at the beginning of spring when that's at the top of the plant and that's

got the most oil in it and that was used very traditionally in the 18th century and lily

oil was used in is used today in switzerland in the clock watch industry industry and they

use it for their paintings to do watch dials and it has got the most wonderful smell but

a pot like this costs about 50 pounds so I think go for something that's cheaper when

you're learning and glycerol should work well with this aj well so that you're safe as well

using water as a base

so now I'm going to show you some flower painting where there are different approaches you're

already familiar with using an outline pen line and then filling in with a wash so this

sequence shows the pen line just on its own and obviously using different colors appropriate

to what you're painting later and then adding the wash and then finally using lacquer resist

to protect the flowers and sponging over in the sequence and then another thicker layer

of this background color and using scroffito or and lacquer resist to reveal the layer

below to give more three dimensions to the design so that's fairly easy to follow this

one is where you just do some free painting as washes using brush strokes you can actually

build up these lines by using a wet in wet method so that's the base paint that you've

painted on is wet and then you introduce more paint which is wet there's another which is

more risky method of wet on dry so you've allowed the base to dry somewhat and then

you add little flicks of color but if that goes wrong you have to wipe the whole off

a whole lot off and start again but if you get it just right and the bottom layer is

damp and you introduce more color it can look really intense and good and here a little

bit of scroffito where there's a layer being fired on below which is the pale tone of this

leaf and then apply more darker green the richer color on top and then scratch back

and you can see the little vein lines there and here again that's had two firings to achieve

that effect I hope you can see that now in detail so it's interesting with the pencil

outline that I showed you here's a strong pencil outline which is on a piece of copper

and I had hoped to keep the copper flat because it's quite thick just like the steel but inevitably

it's gone saucer shaped which you can see when it's lying flat like that it doesn't

lie flat like the steel tile so this is a much better plaque to use and here's the outlining

pencil for a sequence that I'm about to show you very very fine pencil just scribed over

to transfer the pencil line and fire it first so that's been completely fixed and if I was

going to then paint it up I just use a little bit of spit which is a great degreaser just

to wipe over and then it's ready to go and try not to touch anything with your fingers

because no matter how clean they are they've still got a bit of grease on that can spoil

the painting so this sequence goes like this there was a design which was violas and then

I transferred the line to the enamel and fired it and it was just a pale guide it didn't

show through on the first wash of color where I was just adding paint freely with a brush

and here's the next firing of paint color and the next one so that's the final one where

it's looking richer and the colors have gone darker so just like a watercolor sequence

that's how you would build up the color but you fire in between the layers and you don't

add one color or another at the end like the fugitive reds it's possible with this sunshine

ceradel range to mix them and use them all at the same time but that little bit of intensity

works quite well in the final firing so if I just do a little demonstration to show you

how to do say this piece here I'll move these up a bit and then show you the paints now

here's the color wheel as a reference and I keep my paints in just a plastic food box

so this lot I've mixed up with glycerol as I've recommended for this course and on top

I've got the mixed color portrait painting and I'll introduce those in a minute but here

is the whole warehouse of colors just like these but it's got a couple of mixes as well

you've got the great black that I've spoken about before and you've got the rich dark

brown there the rich dark brown is the purple and the blue and the rich chestnut so those

three colors make that one and if you just change this chestnut for reed green that's

your purple black so two mixes there two dark colors and for portraits later it's going

to be this cream color as well but don't need to talk about that quite yet let's put these

ones down and then you need to bring in the medium and the solvent so I put the paints

closest to me and then I'll put some tissue down here just to wipe the brush on and I

put the solvent first and then I put the medium so that I'm washing the brush first that makes

sense so I'm going to take not the zero but the number one brush and these are Kolinsky

miniaturists and actually the labels worn off on this one I've used it so much but here

we are here's the remains of it it's the Kolinsky series 7 miniature finest sable by

Windsor and Newton England if you can find some equivalent that works that's absolutely

fine but as I said just make sure it reaches that very fine point or you'll be frustrated

so I'll put down the number two brush and just wipe it into the solvent and just get

a little bit of this roll which all these paints are mixed in already and I'm going

to put a slightly darker green over the top of this base so let's get a bit of the chrome

green and some of the reed green which is a very dominant color and just for the purposes

of this demo you'll see the effect of putting one layer over the original firing okay so

coming around here I'm just gently stroking the paint into place like this and then I

can do a bit of tidying later and roll the brush in more of the paint and you're virtually

pulling the paint over the surface to get that effect clean that off and then using

the damp brush just wipe down here to make that point finer and go around and then take

out the middle to reveal the layer below we've got a bit of a bright light in my eyes but

I hope that you can see how it's looking and just turn the painting around so that you've

got it in the right direction for yourself to pull paint towards you so don't go across

like that it's very difficult to make a horizon that way but if you turn it through 90 degrees

to pull down to make a horizon is much easier so that just gives you the basic idea there

and once you've got something fired on then you can build up the detail and just put in

these little touches if you put it straight into the yellow it would blend too much so

just plan the layers and the firings okay so if I've got just three little lines like

that I can show how I would then tidy these up to get refined lines so it looks clumsy

at first but with the paintbrush you can tidy and make it look really much more miniaturist

so this is really wash colors like light watercolor that I'm demonstrating not miniaturist techniques

quite and then you would fire that in the kiln when you've gone all over it and that

would be the next layer and it would look like that and then you'd add the next layer

on top so I hope that gives you a good idea for flower painting

in this exercise I'm just going to first of all show you the paint palette for portrait

painting and this is set out in quite a different sort of way as you can see with the mixed

colors being there for the flesh tones but your warehouse of colors is exactly the same

as I've shown you before and I've circulated all these sheets to allow you to chop up your

own size of charts so that you can cover it with a film to protect it from getting grubby

and then just lay it under the paint palette if you're using glass so here's the flesh

tones matching beautifully and here's what I call the warehouse of colors just below

almost matching that dark grape black is just slightly over to the right but as long as

you know where you're going with it in the end you won't need these charts but it's

just initially to just see what the mixes are you've probably all got an airtight box

and that's to slow down the rate of evaporation and I recommend putting the paints into the

fridge to slow down the evaporation even more between painting sessions and inside I've

got these two little pieces I've made from copper which help you to make the double decker

paint palettes now if you go to Russia they're far better organized they've got mini chests

of drawers and they just slide these plates in and they're completely dust free and because

they're using sewing machine oil they're just not going to gather any dust and they're going

to stay wet and they can just bring out the palette mixed palette for that particular

subject that they might be repeating but here this was the method that I was taught in Barcelona

and it works for me so I've still got the original little copper pieces that my my teacher

chopped up for me so I'm quite fond of them so just to show you that if you bring out

your palette from working say the previous day you must just freshen up the paints because

they tend to get a little bit dry around the edge if you've used something like pine oil

and particularly if you've used unimeter if you're working quickly anyway you will need

to grind them probably every half day like every two and a half hours depending on the

ambient temperature of the room that you're working in because that will influence evaporation

with the glycerol they do stay wet for a while I I mixed these earlier and there's no need

to freshen them up but I'll just show you what I do anyway as a matter of course every

day that I'm painting I would take the first color the white then the yellow then I would

mix up this color which is the waxy color cream color which is the the basis for the

flesh tones that I'm going to introduce for the portrait painting or any flesh so make

sure that that's all well ground and anything that's dried around the edge it's ready to

then put back so I would use a cotton or linen cloth this time rather than tissue because

I'm becoming more purist now that this is advanced techniques and I don't want any dust

or little hairs to go onto the paint get stuck in there and then show in the fire so

I'm going to put that back there where it's nice and clean now and show you how I actually

mixed that color so having mixed up the white polar white there the cloth over here it can

just be a handkerchief this is an old napkin tiny little bit of the yellow because it's

quite a dominant color so mix that in and of course depending on the complexion this base

color has to match the the the lightest tone of the complexion of the person that you're

painting so you'd need to look at your color chart to see where that would come in this

area here well obviously not the blues but somewhere in in this area and just practice

by mixing two colors together but in different proportions just as I showed you with the

yellow tiny little bit of yellow it may need a third color as well to make the base so

that I'm just adding in so I think it's quite important that you see how the flesh tones

are mixed so I'm going to wipe away totally ones that I did earlier but you've seen them

as a reference and just use the cotton cloth to wipe over and of course it's water that

I'm using as my solvent but what I'm going to do is look here you've got Ruchdefer this

one plus a little bit of ochre thanks Oscar and then you've got a touch of purple red

so I'll mix this up to show how that's done so some Ruchdefer I would say about that much

I then tend to put a little bit more of the ochre mix that in so it's that sort of a tone

and then it's just calmed a little bit by a touch of the purple red here just a little

touch of it there and I'll scoop that up and put it in place so that's the color mixed

and that's really what they would call in the past traditionally the carnation color

or the flesh color now the shadow of the flesh color is chestnut and purple so I'll mix this

one first and then purple itself it's about equal quantities here so a little bit more

purple and place that here so that will be into the shadow the crease of the eyelid things

like that then you've got this color here blue clair with some of the chrome green so

little bit of look here a little bit more because this is this tends to be a male flesh

tone so if you use it on a woman or a girl it's going to give her five o'clock shadow

there's the the tone of it a little bit more blue and then there's the chrome green going

in to there and the final one here is the blue clair again that one with touch of purple

and this is more a female softer shadowing color just a little bit more and this is for

the flesh so four basic colors there which you'll be using all the time and for all my

portraits that's pretty well all I've used although I have done portraits obviously of

people have different complexions and I've matched that very carefully to get brown tints

more yellowy tints whatever it is more ochre tints so just have a selection there that

match the portrait that you're going to be using so I'm going to put these back in the

box again because just leaving them in the open isn't too good no the next thing I'm

going to do is to show you how to blend colors to actually use these four colors here and

then paint this sphere that actually shows the 3d look that you will need if you're able

to paint that or an apple as they say or anything then you're thinking of the face with all

these flesh tones so this is just a little exercise to show that I'm going to anchor

this tile which is a blank onto here with a bit of blue tap and onto a piece of cardboard

now you could also use this is a cake support and it's all beautifully it's got ball bearings

so that it can spin and that way you can turn the subject around without having to touch

it so this is quite a cheap little bit of kit that's really useful if you're working flat

like this as I say I tend to work vertically but for this exercise I need to bend over

the work so I've got everything lined up here and I'm going to use the glycerol which I

put to one side here and I put the solvent first and then I put the medium so you'll

be able to get at it like that and then wipe the brush on your napkin or handkerchief whatever

you have I'm going to use the number one brush again and I take off the tube to protect it

and sometimes I give these brushes a hair wash with shampoo and it's just a very good

way to keep them and finally I would just draw through to leave it as a point don't

leave it with medium in it definitely not with solvent in it so we've got everything

lined up now and I'm going to be putting down this first flesh tone here so start quite

intensely and then draw it out and then the shadow of that color here so this was the

purple and the chestnut going as thin as possible there just becomes automatic to wipe on the

hanky and then into the water to clean the brush and then finally dip into the glycerol

which is the medium this time and if you turn it around like this then it's the easiest

thing to draw the brush down and make a lovely tidy line like that and I'm going to pull

it that way because it's easier so that's the beauty of being able to swivel around

a piece of cardboard or the cake stand okay so there you've got two tidy lines two tidy

bars I'm not going to put these in until the end because they'll get in the way I'm just

going to show you the secret of building up a portrait is to put the base down which I've

mentioned before is like icing a cake and you have to have this covering the whole portrait

except for the actual eyes so anything that's flesh just lay this color down this waxy color

you can't see it that well because it's not that yellow but it's the thing that is a key

to receive the other paints so I'm putting in I think a little bit of a sphere it's a

rough shape of a sphere can you see that Oscar is it looking any different from the background

no not really it's not yeah if I hold it up and just you'll probably catch the reflection

then so that you can see the matchness of the paint cool that if you could tilt it back

up to the light again back up there yeah yeah okay so that's laid down and this is how I

started this one just to match it the next thing I do is put in the carnation tone and

introduce that very very gently here just working it in coming around there just imagining

I'm going around the highlight so you've got the light on the cheek and then you've got

it coming into the flesh tone the carnation tone and then it will be going into the richer

shadow tone and just coming around there if you need a bit more of the waxy color then

you can add it in but don't make it so thick that it's not going to fire properly so you

can just blend the color gently like that and just keep adding until you're satisfied with

it so I'm making quite bold brush strokes being in a bit of a hurry but you can refine

this to your heart's content because the glycerol stays wet quite a long time but when it begins

to get tacky that's when you must stop painting because it doesn't you can't really wet the

colors and rework them and that applies to the paints as well if you've allowed them

to dry out then you must wipe them all off and start again I do that naturally between

portrait miniatures anyway I would start with a new palette just because you're looking

at it all afresh and considering what the flesh tone really is for your subject then

I come into this darker color here and just work this in so you can tell I spent a bit

longer on this one but you'll get the idea and it's just quite a good exercise to try

for yourself just to see whether you can get that gradation of color you can get a bit

of an overlap but obviously colors will go muddy if you're mixing three colors plus two

and then some shadow tone here say this is what I mentioned was a female tone it's quite

a warm color and you can use it in men as well and you can use the male flesh tone in

women but just use it sparingly it may look masculine okay just now working some of this

underneath here I'm just playing with the four colors mixed just to see how they work

it's really dabbing them on and then blending them in and I'm going to make this color a

bit richer around the edge so because I've got some color there already it takes it very

easily and it's still wet if I were to leave it to dry I'd be working wet on dry which

is a bit alarming you can sometimes get away with it and then you go around the easiest

way possible if you're right-handed is to have it like this and just carve around with

the brush and because it's a damp brush it's like a mop and it's just soaking up the paint

and you're getting a crisper outline and that's looking more all like a little sphere a flesh

sphere and because it's still wet I can add some more flesh tone under here just tiny

little strokes called cross hatching I'm just blending into the blue but I'm not wanting

to make it very muddy so just stopping short of that and I'm going to roll it into some

of this just to pull that down and any just sort of high points of color I'm actually

mashing down with the brush so that I'm also doing puntalism which gets finer and finer

as you work into it so this is just how I work a portrait on any particular detail of

the face rolling a bit more of the waxy color and along the top there and if there's a really

strong highlight you could add a little bit of the polar white just in there and just

blend the color that was there just add that in that's quite strong and intense so I'll

just blend it backwards here and you can just totally lose yourself in this just perfecting

perfecting you know if you've got time on your own then you're just practicing and seeing

how it looks and if you're not happy with it at any time you can just wipe it off and

start again and that's the beauty of enamel effectively any brushstroke is a spontaneous

one and that's got to be good because it's one that you're pleased with so as usual I'm

not particularly pleased with that but it does demonstrate what I'm trying to achieve

with the painting of a sphere and I'm now going to put in the other two colors which

are the the female color which is the blue-clear mixed with purple and more intense at this

end that's about as much paint as you dare add when you're doing a portrait and you know

quite often I'd be starting a portrait one day and my husband would come into the studio

and she'd been doing and I'd show him these and he'd say you can't see anything there

what have you been doing and it's just because I paint very tentatively when I'm starting

a portrait because first of all you're putting in the physical features and you're really

concentrating on the contours of the face and what is it that makes that expression

and then later you have a dialogue with that person as you begin to see the features in

place and you're working on the flesh tones and modeling the face and the whole thing

starts to develop like an old-fashioned photograph in the fixative so I put the brush into a

little bit of glycerol the medium only not water on the painting ever and just thin that

out a bit and then I'm going to turn it through 90 degrees so that I can just draw the brush

down there and get more of a fine line and the same on the other side or if you want

to leave it frilly then do and you could label this up of course with your pen oil you could

just mix the color up and just say which these flesh tones are just for reference if you're

not sure so it's a very good aid to use and I'll fire that so that you can see how it

how it fires up and how the colors are fixed you'll put that over on the side and I want

to next show you a portrait sequence and this sheet you've already had but I'll put the

paints away because it's good to have them in the airtight box before I start showing

you an eye portrait that I'm going to demonstrate so that's away and now we can talk about this

sheet here this chart for which you have a feather copy but I've got the originals here

so it's much better color quality shows the complete sequence from a piece of copper all

the way through to a finished portrait although I haven't done the full face it just would

have taken a long time it was an enamel painting friend who I trained up who helped me with

this and it took 60 firings as it was to complete this whole sequence and that's mainly done

that side obviously so it's got many layers about seven layers all together to this point

but starting with a piece of copper this is domed already and it's actually been punched

out with hydraulics and what I've done is to counter enamel it because as you know if

you don't have counter enamel on the back and you just have enamel on the front at some

stage it may just ping off because it's not an equal tension on both sides of the copper

making a sandwich of glass copper glass on the other side I you can also paint on steel

as you've seen or on silver or 18 karat gold the dream of all because it just doesn't move

in the kiln it just stays completely stable the shape that you've made and it will also

go through many many firings about 30 maximum whereas silver and copper they take about

12 firings and same with steel before they begin to get a little bit tired so you just

have to plan accordingly so the top coat on the front side of the enamel is actually a

clear flux that I fired on and I started with diamond flux or it could be gold flux or it

could be a silver flux which is a little bit more blue but the gold flux is a lovely warm

color and just enhances the portrait on the copper then I would add a layer of opalescent

so you've got your two firings here and under here firing at the same time it's quite good

if you can put the counter enamel on the other side of the gold flux and the counter enamel

on the other side of this opal the opal used to be soya 101 it can also be shower 64 and

that works very well and you may have other ideas and then share them with us please so

there's a second coat of opal that's wet laid and dried and then fired and a third layer

and as you can see it's going white whiter but it still has a pinkness to it which enhances

the portrait and finally that layer when it's cooled has been stoned back and then it's

fired again and then it's absolutely smooth so if there's any roughness in these two and

then the third layer in fact then you just stone it back with diagrit to make it completely

smooth so this side now shows the sequence of the portrait painting and you've first

of all got the pencil line that's been added to modelling clay has been rolled over this

piece and it's then acting as a key for the pencil line that's transferred with a fine

scribe because if you use a thick pencil lead then it's obviously going to show as a wide

line so the finest that you can manage just to see enough to follow the contours for the

painting and you're going to be replacing each of those fine pencil lines with paint

so if you're not confident which I'm not when I'm doing a portrait I would fire the pencil

line in place no higher than 750 degrees centigrade or 1382 Fahrenheit and then you've fixed the

pencil line so that when you're adding painted line if you're not sure about putting that

painted line in the right place you can wipe it off knowing that you've still got the pencil

line there for reference so you fire on the painted line and then you start to model the

portrait so this is the first wash laying it on very very thinly so that it just shows

through because it's like layers of tissue paper where one layer shows through another

so that's then fired and fixed and then the second layer is applied and it's gradually

developing using this follow through until you here you've got four and fifth and sixth

that's been through the kiln three more times and it's like adding seven layers of skin

really so that's actually had six layers of the painted so each time 750, 1382 and you

can't go wrong really so we're now going to move on to an actual portrait of a loving

eye but first I'm going to fire up this sphere to show you how it looks when it comes out

of the kiln so there it is looking rather matte because the glycerol has dried

I've got some family portraits of my own in my own collection that I've brought to show

you and it shows over about 20 years I suppose a sequence this was the first one and I put

in a very tentative background around this child you can see the pinkiness of the opal

I rather liked it and I've just enhanced it a little bit around the shoulders and the

hair and so on otherwise I've left it pretty well natural and I rather like the stripiness

of Lucy's outfit with the with the cat stripes the next one round about the same time the

background was inspired by a trip to Turkey and saw Turkish tilings and just thought that

that would work quite well so here's the background to this brother and sister it's my niece and

nephew and I used white transfer paper at that stage that was the method that I was

taught and it's described in the book but it was very difficult to actually see the

white line you had to remove the chalkiness it's the transfer paper that they use in dress

making and then you remove the chalkiness and then you've just got a greasy line and

that's what you put the paint line over to start the sequence and in this one I've used

pencil and this is the baby 14 years later and in this it's interesting to show how I

was exploring backgrounds made with underglaze painting so when I'd finished the background

painting it was pretty well black using underglazed black not the overglaze and I've got a test

piece here because I discovered that putting the third layer of opal over the top made

it go this gorgeous inky blue so I rather enjoyed that background and in some I've then

tinted it a little bit more with some blue and lavender coloured paints just to enhance

that but otherwise that's the effect you get with underglaze black and you don't get it

with overglaze I did the same with this one of my grandfather and he loved writing poetry

so I wrote one of his poems in the background using underglaze and then put the opal layer

over the top so I had a white silhouette and then I started the painting so all the background

was done before the painting then I did this one of my mother when I'd moved on to working

with gold and I really wanted to put in a background that that would represent her love

of shawls so I've got the Paisley shawl in the background although she's known for her

studies of the Norwich shawl and all of that background was worked again with a white silhouette

and before I did any sort of painting I had the all the gold in place that's gold foil

in the background and gold luster and painting it up and the most recent one this is a loving

well faithful eye I would call it of my dog Spice and I thought it would be quite interesting

to show my silhouette in the pupil of her eye I just noticed it after I had taken the

photos they're just catching the light there hope you can see that so any eye is a great

study if you have access which you do to your own eye your pet's eye or whatever now magnification

I have changed over the years when I was taught my teacher had a handheld pocket lens like

this and she held that in her left hand and painted with her right so that she had everything

in view I've got this piece here which has a halo light around it and it can be used

for all sorts of craft work so it's got the magnifying lens in the middle and for using

larger pieces this is really useful because the microscope that I'm going to show you

is quite confining in the pool of light and the sight size that you're looking at so that's

another option another way is to get some magnifying specs like these ones and you can

also get clip-on magnifiers like these that you can attach to your normal spectacles so

here's the clip and this is my preferred method when I'm sitting at the easel painting so

these are another sort and make sure that they're absolutely vertical in line with the

work and then along here we've got the actual magnifying wizard of all which is a Leica

microscope and I was lucky enough to be able to make a donation for this only rather than

have to buy it because some people in our village used microscopes to reclaim gold from

computer parts so all their workers were working under microscopes and getting the gold back

and when they finished their business they had all these microscopes in their barn and

I was very interested in this one and they were very generous in giving it to me and

I made a donation to the village and I've got LCD lighting here which is bendable and

wonderful to really focus in on what you're looking at here and you can adjust this up

and down according to your height to be able to get it at the right and it is really nice

to be able to stand to your work sometimes rather than sitting down all the time so I

like working at the microscope at the beginning of a portrait when I'm making the fine lines

and at the end for the final layer of painting that works very well to be able to see the

final detail that you're putting on and although you can't necessarily see the detail when

you're holding a piece and looking by eye it is there under the microscope and you know

that everything that you see under the microscope has to be able to be magnified to actual size.

So to recap we've got various stilts to put into the kiln and this is the one that I recommend

which is ceramic fiberboard and it's got kiln clay slip over the top of it which has been

baked on.

Titanium mesh we've been using because there's no chance of any nasty dusty oxide bouncing

off onto the work and spoiling it.

Just going to do a demonstration of putting a stack of stainless steel supports of various

kinds onto the ceramic fiberboard to show you what happens when it goes in the kiln

and when you bring it out and a nice bit of clean ceramic fiberboard piled high with other

supports which I don't recommend using.

This is going to go into the kiln for some time.

There's already something in there because I've got some ceramic fiberboard in there

for firing the next piece.

Just put that on top and just leave it for a little while.

So the kiln temperature's dropped to about 700 and it's just going to climb back up again.

So when it's at say 760 I'll be taking that out.

The kiln has now reached a high temperature and everything's glowing in there so I'm just

going to flip it all out and place it down there to cool down and shut that down.

Actually while that's cooling we can fire the sphere so don't be tempted to touch it

with your fingers, use a butter knife and just slide it across there for faster cooling and

it also gets any oxide well away from what I'm going to do now.

So I'm going to take out this piece of ceramic fiberboard that's been sitting in the kiln

so it's nice and hot and we'll fire more quickly because this piece which I'm just going to

lower gently onto there is quite a thick piece of stainless steel.

Once again we'll just check has it started steaming?

Yeah using our spestula singers just put it back in place.

This one might not steam as much due to the fact that it already dried a bit.

That's true it's been sitting on the side hasn't it and it's in a very hot ambient temperature.

So that's enough.

Put it to the back and wait for the kiln to climb up.

Now have a look at this to see what's happened underneath here.

Just remove these.

I can spy a bit.

Yep there's a few bits on there which I would not be happy with if they had come onto the

actual enamel that you're using.

So do not use these.

It's just not worth it.

And sometimes if those need cleaning and they've just been used many many times it gets worse.

So it's just not worth even one speck.

There is a way of cleaning those steel piles or the titanium mesh that has any bits of

enamel glass in there and that is to heat it up to a reasonable temperature and then

quench it into water.

Not straight away but just after about count of two or three and that will just crack off

any enamel glass there and return the metal mesh.

So that's quite a good idea.

After firing the sphere when it reaches 750 I'm then going to show you how to make a loving

eye.

Here I've just painted my own eye.

Nothing easier is there than just look at yourself.

Take a photo, take a selfie of your eye and then set about painting it in the sequence

that I'll show you.

So first of all I've been making a photo and I've printed out on plain paper and then I

would print a glossy version so that that's best quality.

And then I'd make a tracing and that's what we'll do back at the bench.

So I'm going to take out this little piece now.

It should be fully fired because it reached 750.

And we've got the light over just catching the light but interestingly it's not quite

fired so it goes back in the kiln for a little bit longer.

It's much easier to put something back in the kiln but if it's been in there too long,

if the piece is too small and it's been in there too long and over fired, nothing you

can really do about that I'm afraid.

So that's got to climb back up.

Just give it an extra boost and hope that that will work.

Not quite fired.

Let's have a close look at that so we can get it on camera.

There you can see the matte texture and it's perhaps because I've used more of the white

which is slightly higher firing than any of the other paint colours so it's going to go

back in again.

Let it sink for a bit, rise in temperature and then hold it.

Okay so the temperature is climbing back up to 750 quite quickly now and I shall take

out the enamel at that point and check that it's smoothly fired.

It's got to be glossy all over to work.

This is near the point and you're so easily distracted at this point possibly.

So I've got a mat to stand on and once you're standing on the mat you're glued to it.

Do not leave it.

You could just walk away and look at your phone and get distracted.

So here we go.

That's it.

Out she comes and shut the film door quickly and then look at that.

Under the light you can just see it's gone glossy all over so I'm happy with that firing

now.

Can you see that Oscar?

If you tilt him one more.

Little bit so it doesn't fall down.

Tilt back again.

Yep.

There you go.

And side to side.

Yeah.

And then you'll see that cool down.

Now it does stick for a little bit as I said before.

Yeah because it's been in there quite a long time.

The counter enamel has stuck to the clay slip which is on the ceramic fibre board but it

will just come away of its own accord as the enamel contracts and cools it will just lift

so it's best to just leave it now.

I'm at the painting desk now and I've got a vertical easel set up here which was a portable

painting easel to which I've added this block of wood and then I stick the enamel on here

using blue tack.

On the painting desk I've got the box which these clip-on specs came out of and the make

is Eschenbach if you're wanting to follow that up.

They come in various magnifications and this one is about twice and that's all I need.

When I'm working here I would clip these two prescription specs.

What I'm using at the bench here or the painting desk is these magnifying glasses and it just

reminded me using the microscope that that's what I use to study the 18th century exquisite

portraits to find out how they painted them and you could see all sorts of little scrafitto

marks that they made in the hair to give it texture.

You could see the pointillistic dots, the cross hatching, the layers of colour.

On lace you could see where they had put dense dark dots of colour onto white and it was

just fascinating to learn from people who'd been dead for centuries that it's possible

when you go into museums to see these wonderful miniatures.

So here I've got a sequence of the painting of my eye and starting at this end I've got

the line drawing which has the painted layer on it and then I've got the first layer of

paint that's been fired on just all painting quite tentatively and then the next layer

has been built up and you can see the 3D effect beginning to take shape until the final layer

shows it to be more realistic with all these dense shadows and so on.

Depending on the age of the person is just how many little wrinkles you put in and how

much the white of the eye has shading but in a baby it's just amazing to see a kind of

porcelain white of the baby's eye and you'll just see that it's really about observation

and what you're seeing before your eyes plus a little bit of editing and if you want to

be kind to somebody and make them look 10 years younger then it's very obvious how you

just lift the eyelids a bit and lift that a little bit and lower that and take away some

wrinkles and you've got a changed person which is probably unrecognisable.

So I'm going to go to this piece which has already had the paint line over the pencil

line and it's been fired and I'm going to demonstrate how to build up the first wash

to make it like this.

So I've got the sequence there for reference we've got the paints down here and I'm going

to be talking through which paint colours I'm using all the time.

So I've got a little pot of water and then I've got my glycerol there as solvent and

medium that I'm using.

So I've dipped and dried and the first thing is to lay on this waxy layer all over.

So this is the base for the flesh colour and this has to be put on at the same sort of

thickness so you don't want any ridges of this waxy white you just want enough to receive

the flesh tones on the top because when the whole thing flowers it's all got to be about

the same level.

I'm just working quickly with a number one brush I could have picked a number two that

would have made it a bit faster.

This glass paint is obviously very abrasive and so it's wearing the sable brush down much

more quickly than you would wish.

It gets to the point where the brush is perfect for you and then just one more little stroke

and a hair comes away and you think oh no it's not like it used to be and you have to break

in a new brush.

So I get through about a brush a month I think but you can increase the life by which I try

to by giving them a shampoo and looking after them well and not leaving them in the medium

or in the solvent.

We're just working around here.

So you're going everywhere except the eyeball itself so into the inner eyelid there anything

that's flesh basically.

Right now it's got that base acting as a key we can work into this with flesh tones so

you can see it looks quite rich already and I should really have the photograph alongside

that's what I want to get back to rather than copying this one but I think Oscar's just

going to be able to reach it maybe that would be great and sometimes I will cover this with

various photographs and work from several because I like to edit the photos in order

to work up the portrait.

Oh thanks Oscar that's brilliant.

Yep we'll just put that there.

Good so now I've got the photo in place that's important to be able to have that as the original

reference rather than Chinese whispers all the way down here.

I'm looking back to this and just looking at where all these little lines are these

tiny little wrinkles that give it personality.

So let's pull that in and carrying on with the flesh colour I'm going to work along here

and down and around here just keep charging up the brush with paint and it's a case of

dispersing the paint and mixing it with this waxy layer so that you've got a soft pinky

flesh tone coming in here.

Just a little bit of shadow there but that's a bit more bluey later.

Just a bit there and then I'm going to come down here with this little frown line there

and this one here.

It's just incredible how a tiny little stroke can make a difference with the likeness.

So I've got my egg memoir there, physical features first, dialogue with personality

and mainly getting rhythm into the whole thing.

Sometimes I'm concentrating so much on this that even listening to classical music you

just want to switch it off and just empty your mind and be totally fixed on what you've

got in front of you.

And then other times I'm able to listen to a radio play or something like that because

it requires less concentration.

I know where I'm going with it but when I'm wrestling with the likeness it's the most

critical phase.

And several times I've had to do an edition of portraits like for our Queen's Diamond

Jubilee and each one to me was just very slightly different but people at a glance wouldn't

tell but if you had them all alongside each other you could line them up as to which you

thought was the best.

And one man, I had to do six portraits for his six children and he decided who got what

according to how his look sort of subtly changed so that was quite interesting.

But otherwise you try your best to make everything the same but we're not machines and the

this is how it comes out when it's hand painted.

So now just working down here and I go into this darker flesh tone now to just catch a

little bit there and into this part.

And coming down here and off it goes into that direction.

Now if you were to use what you see as perhaps a black line it just wouldn't look right it

would look like very heavy makeup so just use what you know is there and that's where

you're using these flesh tones just like notes to play a tune on a piano.

And just coming across there.

Now just emphasize that one with a fine line it's probably a bit dark now so I'll have

to lighten that again and just feeling my way with these little bits and strengthening

them a touch.

And when I'm painting I just have to have everything just right the way I'm sitting

otherwise you become aware that your neck's uncomfortable or your legs are just getting

weary or something so that's why I've got the balance variable here.

I haven't got any back support but I'm feeling comfortable.

I've still got the kiln on for firing this piece later to show you that as a demo and

normally I wouldn't have the kiln on in the room until the next morning when I just come

in and I check the work and I think ah no that's not quite right and it's still wet

to be able to work into it.

If it's dried up it's too late you're committed the only way is to scratch it off with some

scraffito and then fire and then patch in.

That's not a very good way but I just want to check before I fire it that morning so

I leave it covered up overnight putting this easel horizontal and just laying a cardboard

box over the top or something like that to protect it from any dust and then of course

it has to be fired straight away.

So now I've got some of the purpley blue which is the soft female shadow here just coming

up there and going around and it just so happens to match nicely.

Okay I'm going to come back to here I'm going to load the paint with a little bit of the

waxy white just to patch this in.

And I'm going to put a tiny bit of this shadow which is the purpley blue into here.

And when you fire this paint on if you slightly under fire so it looks glossy but the paint

will act as a key for the next layer so the brush will drag over it and leave a deposit

of paint just where you've left it and it will begin to paint itself where you've got

some lines and it will just emphasise them even more.

So because you've seen the video of my mother that portrait this one is a rough example

next to it.

Working live and to time schedule but I hope it will give you confidence to make your own

portraits of the eye at least and then post it onto the Facebook page that I've set up.

It would be lovely to see what you do and everyone can learn from everyone else and

I'll make a comment if you like, positive one and then a little tip how to improve so there's

incentive.

Right the eye colour here is quite like the green and blue that I mixed already so I'm

going to lay this down as the base coat a bit like I used the waxy layer.

I'm putting that down and then I can lift anywhere where there's a highlight so I'm

just putting it all over and trying to follow the iris with the brush strokes so it's got

these paint lines radiating out like this.

I'm just washing the brush dipping it into the glycerol and then just tidying here by

seeing that there's a highlight coming around here so may as well lift the paint off and

definitely over the top there and already it's just got a little bit more life into

it.

And then strengthen up the colour around the outside while it's still wet.

And I remember looking into my grandfather's eyes just before he died and I saw this little

rough coloured speck on his iris or in the eye which I didn't know whether it had been

that all the time or whether that was just because he was 96 but then I discovered I'd

got something similar myself at my age and I thought well I've inherited that from him.

So you really begin to look at all the colours in the eye itself if you just want to paint

the iris that's enough.

I've added a touch of ochre in here just to make a shadow and I need to darken that

so I've added a little bit of the darkest blue the Blenui and then I've got the blue

and the green mix and I'm just making that more intense there coming along the top.

So just refer to your colour chart if you're not confident and you can see the colour mixes

there or you could do a test piece before you fire the whole thing just to see how they

work.

And then once again the brush you can just mop up to get that line and then there's

a little highlight there isn't there just where it sits with the eyelid there.

And I'm now going to add some white into the eye so that I can add some tones into that

don't paint straight on to the enamel itself.

So there it is as a coat and I've got a tiny little bit there just to emphasise that highlight

and a tiny bit there.

So that's going to be a little touch of this bluey purple look just coming in here to shade

that and on the other side as well.

There, that's given it another few years.

Okay some more flesh colour along the top here.

And a little bit of make up there.

And then instead of dipping into black itself I'm putting it into blue black that is the

grape black, the mix and I'm just touching in those eyelashes a little bit.

And this is where if it was on that little gimbaled mount you could swing it around and

just draw your brush down to tidy up but because I like to paint at this vertical easel this

is how I like to do it.

I'll just clean up the brush and then it's going to act as a mop just to go in here,

going to come back on the lines, come down them.

That way.

Okay so don't be tempted to rush it and make this as dark as that because it's like racing

a horse.

You've got to hold it back as much as you can and just tentatively put in the colours

and then you've got possibilities of correcting it next time.

Whereas if you leap to that stage straight away there's no way that you can add your

corrections next time.

Each time you're kind of looking at it afresh and thinking now have I got the likeness and

you're really sitting back and making everything as thin as possible in this layer here.

I would really normally when I'm painting up a portrait it would be thinner than this

even so that there's every scope of changing things as you go along.

People are tempted to get the likeness and get the anxiety out and to say well there

is but that won't be such a good portrait as working thinly in each layer and just bringing

the layers up each stage firing in between.

So I'm going to come back up to eyebrows here and this will have dried a little touch so

I can do some little flicks here over the pen work just to put those in place and you

can refine those to your heart's content.

So that's coming along now for this layer here just going to go into the iris and again

I wouldn't use black at this stage even though it looks very black there I would put in the

grape black and just touch it in and there's every chance of making it darker next time

but for the moment I can see myself in the pupil there and the highlight doing the selfie

and in the loving eye of spice I put myself in that as well very very tiny.

So that's about as far as I'd go just a little bit there so soft and gentle work and just

consideration for what you're doing.

Now where I worked down here that was just a little bit scrappy so going to go over that

while it's still wet and I can refine the lines better by moving the paint around that I just

dumped down and then just refining it and pulling that down so there's more color there

and bringing these tiny lines down and at the next stage you'll be looking more carefully

at the color and refining it but hopefully you've got everything that makes the likeness

in at this point and then the second layer is the most difficult that takes the longest

time because every brush stroke is a commitment because when you fire that on it's just going

to be there forever and it will show through into the next layer so it's just got to be

right and just you can go back as long as it's still wet and keep refining and if you

take a break just cover it and then come back to it and look at it afresh.

So it's always wise to think well how does the eye work you've got this lid folded back

here and so there's got to be a shadow in there and it's got to look quite bulky there

and therefore there's got to be this shading here to show that's this this bit here that

will fold away and coming down here and the colors that you're using.

So I think we're just going to stop there and I hope that gives you a very good idea

of a live demo what you're aiming for and I'm now going to take it off here and fire

it in the kiln.

Alright so here's the first layer of paint that I was doing at the easel and remember

to take the tack off the back.

I'm going to use the titanium mesh for speed because that's a good conductor of heat.

I've got my kiln fork I've got the kiln ready to go so I'm just going to dry here.

Did have the kiln door open a moment ago and it lost some heat but this is enough for drying

it I'm just driving off the water in the glycerol but there's steam rising and that's just enough

to lay it down there and let it fully rise and dry.

So the kiln's up to temperature now and the painting is well dried and it's ready to offer

up into the kiln so opening the door no big shock putting it in straight away but then

just put it at the back where it's hottest and quickly shut the door and wait for the

kiln to well it will first lower the temperature and then it will begin to climb back up up

to 750.

So now the piece is ready to remove from the kiln and I can already see just looking down

on it glimpsing that it's gone shiny so here it is just put it underneath the light which

you need to check and you can see it's shiny glossy all over which means that the enamel

paint has just sunk by a hair's breadth into the base and all that is fused together and

safe to work on again.

Could you tilt it back there again, tilt it back towards the LEDs so other way round so

yeah that's it.

And I think you heard it ping maybe and that was the enamel coming away from the titanium

mesh so it doesn't take long and just a little tap like that and off it comes and I can put

it on the steel block just to hurry cooling down and you'll see significant colour change

very quickly.

There we are, I don't want it sliding onto my thumb and burning it.

Is that the right angle?

That's perfect.

Yeah good.

So that's ready for the next layer now.

Switch the kiln off and I always switch it off at the wall as well.

I dread burning down the Dartington Estate and we could transfer that now to the marble.

There we are and just leave that for a bit and it's pretty well come back to the original

colours because it's cool enough, it's still cooling.

I always dread marble cracking or something so I put it on the steel first and this steel

is already very hot so usually I put that into cold water to cool it and then I would put

it back on there to help cool and then finally onto the marble.

So that's where it's resting now.

So I hope that's inspired everybody to have a go for yourselves and not be overwhelmed

by the whole portrait but to try a section.

If you like lips do that but with the eye you've got many colours there with the eye colour

as well as the flesh tones and so on.

So that's it for the advanced techniques now.

Thanks for watching.