Brass Pattern Stencils
Currently, I am working on a restoration project for a church that was built right after the Civil War in upstate New York. Like so many stained glass windows of that era, a brass stencil painting technique was used. A large amount of the painted pieces in the windows are faded or broken and need to be replaced. In order to do this, I am using some original glass painted pieces to remake a brass stencil like the original that was likely lost.
I am using new glass painted in this old style to fill in the problem areas. The same type of paint used for trace line-additive painting and tonal subtractive painting will be used. The technique involves painting the full piece of glass with a dark brown or black paint first so that you can't see through it. Then, after the paint is dry, the brass stencil is placed on top of the piece of glass. A thick camel hair or similar type brush is used to remove the exposed paint below the stencil. The piece is then fired. When it is cooled, tones and silverstains finish the project.
When this historical process was started, the idea was to make a field of glass within a window the same size and color so that a stencil could be used to quickly fill in a large area. The stencil designs look a lot like pattern painted around the upper section of a wall in faux painting. Really though, architectural faux painting is a cousin of stained glass painting. Many of the brushes and techniques can be carried over from one to the other. Faux stencils could be used for glass painting and are available online.
I also happened across a great online dictionary of stained glass terms.
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