176 
KERAMIC STUDIO 
SHERBET GLASS IN ENAMELS AND LUSTRE— LOLA A. ST. JOHN 
(Treatment for China page 174) 
ENAMEL DECORATION FOR GLASS 
D. M. Campana 
IF you ask an old practical glass decorator how to produce 
successful relief -paste- work and relief enamel decorations, 
he will wink his eye and tell you that everybody can do it 
well, that a wise person will not give away his trade secrets, etc. 
|2 ^ Every decorator is believed to have a special method, or a 
special enamel, or oil to mix them, or a special nack to apply 
it, but in the end every successful decorator does it very nearly 
in the same manner, and he will not undertake any work with 
anything else but what he knows by experience to be good. 
On the contrary, students will try many different materials, 
sometimes because they don't know what is best, sometimes 
because their teacher told them so, and sometimes just to see 
how it works, the result being that they do not produce good 
work, lose confidence and besides lose glass, time and money. 
The spirit of experimenting is a commendable spirit, but rather 
costly, and as I have done a large quantity of fancy enamel 
work on Venetian Glass, I will gladly help the student with a 
few fundamental suggestions. 
Many enamels on the market are used by experienced 
decorators in glass factories with splendid results. Those 
decorators have studied and found the proper enamel for the 
special brand of glass they are painting, and it fires very well. 
It must be understood, however, that the body of glass itself 
has a certain influence on the enamels used in those decora- 
tions. In my working, I found that by a small addition of a 
special Kaolin to a good staple white enamel, this enamel 
works more steadily and surely when applied over any kind 
of glass. 
This is a great advantage. If you have a good reliable 
White Enamel, you already know a good deal toward success- 
ful enamel work. 
When I come to mix it, the Kaolin makes my enamel 
much smoother, and enamel must be very smooth. As to 
mixing of the enamel, I use nothing else but pure clean turpen- 
tine. I place on the slab the certain quantity of powder enamel 
required for the whole work, heap it up on a corner of the slab, 
take now with my knife a part of it and moisten with turpen- 
tine, smoothing it down carefully. I then heap it up. 
One of the general mistakes of students is to mix glass 
enamels too thick, I mix mine rather liquid, perhaps like 
cream, and mix only a small quantity at a time so as to have it 
always fresh. If you mix much of it at a time, the turpentine 
will evaporate before you use it up, and you are compelled to 
keep adding turpentine, in this way making the enamel too fat. 
On the contrary, this small lot is easily used up, and a new lot 
quickly made. For every stroke I apply, I take new enamel 
and try to make every stroke work correctly without having 
to go over and over. It is true that turpentine alone will not 
give a thick, high body to the enamel, but it will avoid the 
boiling of the enamel one hundred per cent, and this lesson is 
meant for students rather than experienced artists, for the 
person that wishes to do well without much experimenting, 
rather than for a practical glass decorator 
If I wish to give more body to the enamel I add either a 
drop of tar oil, or a drop of fresh Damar Varnish to .twenty 
drops of fresh turpentine, but for general enamel work on 
glass you do not require much of thickness and the turpentine 
alone will be good and safe. 
In other words, enamel boiling is caused sometimes by bad 
enamel, but more often by too much fat or bad oils used in 
mixing. I also dry my enamels well before I fire them, as the 
drying of the enamel during the firing affects the fusing action 
of the enamel itself. 
I warn students that the keeping of the turpentine-mixed 
enamel in good condition requires some practice. Stir it up 
often, adding a trifle of turpentine so that it will keep always in a 
good running consistency, and discard what was left over or 
has dried. Above all have it half liquid. 
As for the brush I use long red sables, called Dresden 
liner, I clean my brush often of the old enamel, and scoop up 
enamel for every stroke. Referring to colored enamels, I find 
that these are not always reliable, and do often boil, so that I 
generally apply my enamel plain white, fire, and paint over 
it with colors on the second firing. 
Colors used over enamel should properly be glass colors 
as these are more soft than china colors. Another good use 
for enamel is a flat background, that (after firing) can be used 
SAT SUM A VASE— Design suitable for glass enamel 
