Glazing Colors.

Manufacturer and builder 6, 1891

Glazing is a term which has probably been borrowed from the potter's art of coating the ware with a transparent vitreous substance.

The house-painter uses the word glaze in speaking of the setting of windowpanes, and the word is used also by other tracks when speaking of a finish that adds luster.

Glassy, transparent, is the correct meaning, therefore glazing colors arc those possessing but little body or covering power, and which are employed when richness and brilliancy are desired.

Body colors may be rendered transparent or partially so by using but little color to a large proportion of vehicle; but such glazing is of no value except to landscape painters, and not much to them.

There is no difficulty in producing a perfect glazing coat, when the painter knows how to prepare the foundation colors.

The self-taught painter, supposing that all colors are used the same, may worry over his carmine or yellow lake and wonder why they will not cover, and he may give up in despair; but the regular vehicle painter, knowing what is demanded, proceeds with a glaze with as little concern as be would for a body color.

Any body color which is to be used as the color proper should be flue, clean, and laid on perfectly smooth. This being the practice in good shops, glazing is merely the extra work of laying two or more coats of transparent color.

The glaze may be put on thin and but one coat given, which is practiced when it is desired to impart brilliancy to the under coat. Brilliant vermillion is produced by a thin glaze of carmine over vermillion, and the same method may be adopted with the yellow and green lakes.

The common practice is to prepare the ground color so that it will cloudy match the tone of glazing color as it appears when mixed or "wet up," for every color is slightly deeper in tone when wet or mixed in oil or varnish; but the glazing colors are capable of a wider application, for they may be painted over grounds wholly opposite in color. Thus carmine may be glazed over lead color, black, and also over white, yellow, pale green, verdigris, blue, purple, violet and yellow lake; verdigris and ultramarine blue may be glazed over about the same range of colors, but when so used they are better adapted to narrow spaces, striping ornamental and pictorial work.