Glasmalerei Peters - Continued

After my week in Neuenbeken I started work in Paderborn. The first brief project I helped with was to clean clear leaded glass windows that were to be returned to a museum in Amsterdam (not as the exhibits but to go above the doors). They were really mucky and quite badly puttied so I had a lot of work to do on them but not enough time

(Fig.17. Cleaning the museum windows.)

to do the job as thoroughly as I would have liked. I did this using spray foam cleaner and tissue, with wire wool on trickier areas.

Biedermann and Natalia Sittner. I was to help with some tests they were doing for their own research. Thousands of squares of clear glass, yellow textured glass and green glass had been cut. I had to put masking tape around the edges of each of these. Once I had made a substantial pile it was time to paint them. They were painted with a substance I had not seen before that was essentially a liquid gold in a bottle. This was mixed with a little turpentine to make it easier to handle and was them painted on. It went on with the appearance of a thick browny colour but after firing in the usual way it turned to a mirrored gold, so clear I could see my reflection in it. It was extremely easy to use and only painted on very thinly but with the

(Fig.18. Gold paint sample.)

same result. I was told the paint had actual gold in it which is why it was so expensive and used sparingly.

The next project I worked on was for the gift shop. They had already made several small screen printed panels and it was my job to add the colours. The image was a heart shape in bright kiddy colours and was called 'Regenbogenherz'. It was designed by Dietlind Schmiedek from Munster-

(Fig.19. Love heart assembly line.)

Nienberg. I mixed bright pink, salmon pink, green, blue and yellow and began to create a matt finish of these colours all across the heart. They were to look blurry so each colour faded into the next. I just used water and a little gum arabic in the paint. Once I did my matt I cleaned away the excess and scratched off areas where other colours were to go. It was very much like painting by numbers, as I just had to follow a photograph of one done previously as best as I could. After firing some of them looked better than others. I'm not sure if they were happy with them or not as most of the people I was working with could not speak English and I speak no German.

I also did some various church restoration work while I was there. Broken panes of glass would come in and it would be my job to replicate them. I do not know what churches they were from as nobody could understand my question, but I believe they

(Fig.20. Example of glass restoration using oil formula, from unknown church.)

were from several different sources as they looked quite dissimilar. They mixed up their own vehicle for these which they kept in a jar. I wish I knew what was in it because it was extremely good but again no-one could tell me. I took down the German names but I have not yet had time to translate them although I could smell the clove oil and by the colour I think there may have been linseed also. This mixture was then mixed with a little turpentine which made it dry within about an hour which is quick for oil in my experience. It was a really beautiful solution to work with and painted very well.