I created this little presentation especially for Wetcanvas community in order to introduce myself:

Please, excuse me for the few fuzzy pictures, my digital camera was shaking and there is no way to redo some shots.
I will share with you one of the ways how I paint glass, it will be a fragment from the painting I am doing now.
I hope this topic could be interesting for those artists who care about precision technique.

My painting philosophy is a multiple layering of the Flemish Masters’ oil painting technique.
Glass is one of the textures which does not require layering and shouldn’t be started from the white prime.
And a smart way to do that is to paint right on top of the finished, well dried background.
Glass, I think, is supposed to be painted with as less layers as possible.
The most important thing is to catch reflections and translucency at the same time.

Here is the palette I am going to use: little greenishness will tell us that glass is actually colder than the
around color atmosphere. The major pigments are: Naples
yellow, Burnt umber and Prussian blue.

Even if I consider glass completely transparent and not having any color I can’t get away with only highlights
(lighter colors). That’s why the first strokes on the glass are usually gently darker than background,
and only following ones are gently lighter.

In the first few stages we build up highlights constructions with the most dark mixture of the light palette.
I’m using the fine kolinsky brush with the short, accurate and confident strokes.

We’re putting ornament on other side of glass, making it a little darker. Then ornaments go to the front side,
make them lighter. Ornaments’ presence can always bring a desirable transparent effect, so sometimes even if I don’t have ornament on my subject I am adding it myself.

When I make sure that all constructions are properly finished, I take the fluffy blinding brushes and add some
fingerprints and frosted spots, which tells us that the human beings are around.

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After the blending I can go a little wild with flecks of sunlight, highlights by adding to the palette
Flake White with Cadmium Yellow Deep. Finishing bright touches could be considerably heavier in the
deposits of paint.