Original subtitles

welcome back to the studio

for the intermediate

and advanced techniques of enamel painting

I'm going to be using these

on glaze bittress and Amal paints once again

and I want to show you a little bit more detail

about how different mediums can affect the color

of particularly fugitive colors

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 labeled along here

and you can see that there's no change in color at all

tuckquoise is very stable

along with

most of these colors in the sunshine and saradella

range

but when it comes to the purple red this one

which is used in portrait painting

and is a lovely color 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 style like this

and anchor it with some

blue tack

Tiki 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

it's 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 wash 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 3 25

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 color will be really diffuse

and what you need is intensity of color

in the mix that you've got

so I'm going to wipe this section away

and work from the sewing machine medium here

so I'm going to take a minitress brush now

and this is a number one

here's a zero

and here's a No. 2 so in that order the 2

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 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 color

and they will stay there

unlike some medium

other mediums that I'll show you

say this is just one example

you can do some pointalism 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 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 same 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

Unimedia 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 their

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 vapors

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 homonizes 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 Vitrum 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 it

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

don't know what you think or sker

do you like that or not

oh it's a lovely smell

oh well that's a fresh forest right

hundred percent of us here like the smell of pine oil

so it's really gorgeously glossy

it's a bit like

silk screen printing in 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 insist 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 color

only use the medium that's in there already

so painting medium next you'll

you'll see that 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 saying machine

as you saw it shows every little

every little stroke of the brush brushing

so that 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 color to intensify it

so that that color is darker at the top

and then you're working down towards the halftone

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 color

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 sheen 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 furballs

to bring the furball 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

of the paint transferred to there

and then some paraffin oil just place the long side

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 top set the paint

but they obviously make it go further

let's put that down there

pulse it shape quite well because I didn't slud it with

the medium

I'll be 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 and 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

and to me it's behaving between these two

it 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 extractive fan or something

the final medium here

that I'm going to try is Bliss Roll

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 sepure 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 kind of pandemic

so I don't know what the charge would be

but you could bring back this pure alcohol in bottles

about 2 liters 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 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

thick so Tropic 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 gliss roll

roll the paint into the gliss roll 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 halftone 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 just get the packy stuff off the back

and next time you'll see us at the Kiln

here's the test piece

I'm sitting on the titanium mesh for a quick firing

I'm going to let 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 listen to it

so you won't see steam rising

you've got the oil vapor coming off

when you see that

if you can see that also can you just about yeah

so as you do that it's going to be quite trustly now

just a last little bit of vapor

probably

coming off the sewing machine oil at the moment

because that is the heaviest oil

so and obviously at this end

where I put more paint and more medium

that's going to take longer to drive off

so just make sure that that's gone

otherwise the oil driving off

in the Kiln with the heat

it's 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 be at the back of the Kiln

where its hot is

just going to use that

spatula and lay it down there gently

and then shot the film quickly

and then the next time

you'll see it come out to the Kiln

minute 7 50 just like everything else or

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'd 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

bliss roll and using the marker pen you'll notice

or with a Sharpie

that it burnt out in the kill

and it 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 a 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 colors

but if you are

it's really well worth getting the right ace on there

it says in my book

the basis that I recommend are

d w 1 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

say 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

festival making a swatch of colors with a palette

and the colors are just mixed colors

and then of course there's the very detailed one

that I've made

of my palette using sunshine and saradel

so I've got the pure colors 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 halftone black

and then mixing it with white

you can read the grid as you go up and along

so whatever color you choose

if it's read 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 carkey color

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 color 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 fabulous

of color

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 colors that we used when we were learning

and going into the payless sort of colors there

just to see how it holds the color 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

3082 paranheit but

you need to know that some pieces fire more quickly

obviously if it's a piece as big as that with a 1mm

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 far quicker than 7:50 as this one did

so I've got

Spike Lavenderer along 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

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 flour 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 lacca resist to protect the flowers

and sponging over in the sequence

and then another

thicker layer of this background color

and using scrafito or

and lacca 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 scrophedo

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

salsa 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 outline in 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've just used 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 Violos

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

said that's the final one

where it's looking richer in the colours of gondarka

so just like a watercolor sequence

that's how you would build up the colour

but you're 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 serodel 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 colors for 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

the blend we

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

I 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 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

No.1 brush and these are Kalinsky Minitaris

and actually the labels worn off on this one

I've used it say much but

here we are here's the remains of it

it's the Kalinsky series

7 miniature finest sable by winter in 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 No. 2 brush and just

wipe it into the solvent

and just get a little bit of Bliss 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 deno

you'll see the effect of putting one layer

over the original firing

okay so coming around here I'm just

gently striking 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 hate 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 like watercolor that I'm demonstrating

not miniaturous 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 hit that gives you a good idea for flour 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

say 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 fleshtones

matching beautifully

and here's what I call the warehouse of colors

just below

almost matching

that

dark grape black is just slightly able 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 helped you to make the double decker

paint palettes

now if you go to Russia

they're far better organized

they've got many 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 gonna gather any dust

and they're gonna 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 teacher chopped up for me

I think 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 pression up the paints

because they tend to get a little bit dry

around the edge

if you've used something like um

pine oil and particularly if you've used unimeater

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 it

evaporation

um with the glycerol they do stay wet for a while

I I mix 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

um 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 purest

now that this is advanced techniques

and I don't want any dust or

little hairs to go on to 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 mix that color

so having mixed up the white polar white

there

got the cloth over here

you 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 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 once

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

roof defer this one plus a little bit of Oker

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 roosterfer

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 we're mixed

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 Claire with some of the chrome green

so a little bit of blue care a little bit more

because this is this tends to be a male flesh tane

so if you use it on a woman or a girl

it's going to give her

5 o'clock shadow

there's 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 Clare 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 ocre 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 all 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 flapped

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 be able to get it to it like that

and then wipe the brush

on your napkin or handkerchief whatever you have

I'm going to use the No. 1 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 flash tone here

so start quite intensely and then draw it out

and then the shadow of that color here

see this was the purple and the Chestnut

carrying as thin as possible there

it 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 there's not

if I held it up

and just you'll probably catch the reflection then

so that you can see the matchness of the paint

cool there

if you could torture back up to the light again

back up there 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 colonation tone

and introduce that very very gently here

just working it in

I'm coming around there

just imagining I'm going round a 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

just coming around there

if you need a bit more of the

waxy color than you can add it in

but don't make it say thick

that it's not gonna 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 old rustrix

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 I do that naturally between portrait miniatures

anyway I would start with a new palette

just because you're looking at it all the fresh

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 ditto you can use the male flesh tone in women

but just use it sparingly

it may look

masculine

okay

just now work in

some of this underneath here

I'm just playing with the four colors

mixed just to see how they work

it's really dapping 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 should dry

I'd be working wet on dry which is a bit alarming

you can sometimes get away with it

and then you go round

the easiest way possible if your 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 mock

and it's just soaking up the paint

and you're getting a crispa outline

and that's looking more all like like

a little sphere

a flesh sphere

now 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 pontalism

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 the face

roll in 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

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 brush stroke has a spontaneous one

and that's going 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 lookler

mixed with purple

and more intense at this end

that's about as much paint as you'd dare add

when you were 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

what you've been doing and I'd show him these

you only said 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

it cause 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 potograph

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

I'm the same on the other side

or if you want to leave it freely then do

and you could label this up of course with your pen oil

you could just mix a 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 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

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 the way

and now we can talk about

this sheet here

this chart for which you have a photocopy

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 down that side obviously

so it's got many layers

about seven layers altogether to this point

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 those

sides of the copper

making a sandwich of glass

copper glass on the other side

you can also paint on steel as you've seen

or on silver

or eating carrot gold the dream of all

because it just doesn't move in the kill

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

may 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've 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 Opal or lesson

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 country Namal on the other

side of the gold flux

and the country Namal on the other side

of this Opal

the Opal used to be Sawyer 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

as you can see it's going wide

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 in the third layer in fact

then you just stone it back with diagraette

to make it completely smooth

so this side now shows the sequence of the portrait

painting and you first we've got the pencil line

that's been added to

modeling 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 portrait

I would fire the pencil line in place

no higher than 750 degrees centigrade or 13 80

to Fahrenheit

and then you fix 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 here you've got four and fifth and sixth

that's been through the Kiln three more times

it's like adding seven layers of skin really

so that's actually had six layers

of the painted

so each time

753 needs you to 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 cat stripes

the next one round about the same time

the background

was inspired by trick 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 Nissa 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 had 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 colored paints

just to enhance that

but otherwise that's the effect you get

with underglaze black

and you don't guess it with overglaze

I did the same with this one of my grandfather

and he loved writing poetry

so I writ one of his poems in the background using

underglaze and then put the Opal air 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 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 Noridge shawl

and all of that background was worked again

with a white silhouette and

before I did any sort of painting

I had all the gold in place

that's gold foil in the background and gold lustre

and painting it up

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 Harai

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 pets eye or whatever

well 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 like a 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 and 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 endable 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 this at the right

and it is really nice to be able to stand to your work

sometimes you'll have been 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 fiber board

and it's got Kiln

clear slip over the top of it which is being baked on

titanium mesh we've been using

because there's no chance of any

nasty lusty oxide

bouncing off onto the work and spoiling it

just going to demonstration of putting a stack of

stainless steel supports

of various kinds onto the ceramic fiber board

to show you what

happens when it goes in the Kiln

and when you bring it out

and

a nice bit of clean

ceramic fiber board piled high

with other supports which I don't recommend using

and this is going to go into the Kiln

sometime there's already something in there

because I've got some ceramic fireboard in there

for firing the next piece

we'll 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 set 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 gonna lift it all out

take it down there cool down

and shut that down

actually while that's cooling we've confired the spear

so don't be tempted to touch you with your fingers

use a butter knife and just slide it across air

the faster tooling and it also gets any oxide well away

so what I'm going to do now

so I'm going to take out this

piece of ceramic fiber board

that has been sitting in the kill

and so it's nice and hot

and will far more quickly because this piece

which I'm just going to lower gently onto there

is quite a thick piece of stainless steel

so once again the just check has it started steaming

using our special singles

just put it back in place

this one might not steam as much to use

the fact that I 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

you see what's happened on the move here

just remove these

you can spy a bit

yep there's a few bits on there

which I would not be happy with if they had come

on to 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 spec

there is a way of cleaning those

steel piles or the titanium mesh

that has any little 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 counter 2 or 3

and that will just crack off

any enamel glass there and return the metal mesh

so that's quite a good idea

um after firing the sphere when it reaches 7:50

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 and 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'd be making

a

photo

and I print it 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 hard

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 obviously 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 hopes 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 colors

so it's going to go back in again

shut that down

let it sync for a bit

rise in temperature and then hold it

okay so the temperature is climbing back up to 7 50

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 it's so easily

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

she comes and shut the Kiln 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

good and then you'll see that cool down

now it does stick for a little bit

because 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 fiber 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 setup here

which was an affordable painting easel

to which I've added this block of wood

and then I stick the enamelon here using Loot Hack

on the painting desk I've got the box

which these clip on specs came out of

and the make is Eshan Bark

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 the

at the bench here or the painting desk is these

magnifying glasses

and it just reminded me using the microscope

but that's what I used to study the 18th century

exquisite portraits to find out how they painted them

and you could see all sorts of little scrafito

marks that they made in the hair to give it texture

you could see the pontalistic dots the cross hatching

the layers of color on lace

you could see where they had put

dense dark dots of color onto white

and it was just fascinating to the learn

from people who had paint dead for centuries

but 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

than 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 change person

which is probably unrecognizable

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 colors I'm using all the time

so I've got a little pot of water

and then I've got my glitzerol there

as solvent and medium that I'm using

so our dips and dried

and the first thing is to lay on this waxy layer

all over so this is the base for the flesh color

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 fars

it's all got to be about the same level

I'm just working quickly with a No. 1 brush

I could have picked a No. 2

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

they're just working around here

so you're going everywhere except the eyeball itself

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 flash 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 color

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 fleshtone coming in here

just a little bit of shadow there

but that's a bit more bluey later

it's 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 8 memoir there

physical features first

dialogue with personality

and mainly getting rhythm into the whole thing

and 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 am 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 once I had to do

well

several times I've had to do an addition of portraits

like for

our Queens

Diamond Jubilee

and each one to me was just very slightly different

but you know 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 he

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

so now just working down here

and I go into this dark of flesh tone now

to just catch a little bit there

and into this part

and then coming down here

I'm 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 stones

just like notes to play the tune on a piano

I'm just coming across there

and I'll just emphasize that one with a fine line

that's gonna be 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 balanced variable here

I haven't got any back support

but I'm feeling comfortable

I've still got the Kilnon for firing this piece later

to show you that

as a demo

and normally I wouldn't have the Kilnon 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 is too late

you're committed

the only way is to scratch it off

with some scrafito

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 puppily blue

which is the soft female shadow here

just coming up there

going around

and it just so happens to match nicely

okay

I'm gonna come back to here

I'm gonna load the paint with a little bit of fee

waxy white just to patch this in

I'm going to put 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 depositive paint

just where you've left it

and it will begin to paint itself where

you've got some lines

and it will just emphasize 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 that's incentive

right the eye color 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 stroke so it's got these

paint lines radiating out like this

so 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 mezzle lift the paint off

and definitely over the top there

and already it's just a little bit more life into it

there

and then strengthen up the color 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 colored speck

on his eyes 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 I've inherited that from him

so you really begin to look at all the colors

in the eye itself

if you just want to paint the Iris

that's enough

I've added a touch of Oka

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 bloomy

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 color

chart if you're not confident

and you can see the color 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 is this coat

and I've got tiny little bit there

just to emphasize that highlight

and a tiny bit there

so that's going to be

that little touch of this bluey purple dock

just coming in here to shade that

and on the other side as well

there

it's given it in all a few years

okay some more flesh color along the top here

and

little piece of makeup 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 his eyelashes a little bit

and this is where

if it was on that little gimbald mount

you could swing it round

and just draw your brush drought down

to tidy up

but because I like to paint at this vertical easel

this is how I like to do it

I just clean up the brush

and then it's gonna act as a mop

just to go in here I'm gonna come back on the lines

come down them

okay so don't be tempted to rush it and make this as

dark as that because it is like racing a horse

you've got to hold it back as much as you can

and just tentatively put in the colors

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 a fresh

and thinking now have I got the lightness

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 will be thinner than this

even so that there's every scope

of changing things as you go along

people are tempted to get the lightness and

get the anxiety out and to single

there it 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

high brows 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 work down here

that was just a little bit scrappy

so I'm 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

I'm pulling that down so there's a small color there

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 lightness 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 going 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 a fresh

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

therefore there's got to be this shading here

to show that 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

because you're 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 of 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 gonna dry here

I did have the Kiln door right in a moment ago

and it lost some heat

but this is enough for drying it

I'm just driving off the water in the Bliss roll

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 its hottest

and quickly shut the door and wait for the Kiln too

well it will first lower the temperature

and then it will begin to climb back up up to 7 50

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 breath

into the base

and all that is fused

together and safe to work on again

could you tilt it back there yeah

tilt it back towards the LEDs

so other way round

so yep that's it that

and I think you've heard it pin maybe yeah

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 a steel block just to hurry

cooling down

and you'll see significant color change very quickly

there we are

I think want it sliding onto my thumb and burning it

is that the right angle

that's perfect yep good

so that's ready for the next layer now

switch the Kiln off

and I always switched off at the wall as well

I dread burning down the darting to mistake

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 colors

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 colors there with the eye color

as well as the flesh tones and so

so that's it for the advanced techniques now