My first guest post - Glass painting

I hope you all had a very good weekend.  What do you think the medium of painting is? 

Beautiful isn't it?  This was done by my SIL R on  glass.   R is a very talented self learnt artist.  She often experiments with different mediums and thus far I have a couple of her glass paintings at home.  When I asked her if she would be willing to do a guest post, she agreed.   I am happy you could do it and Thank you R.  Here is what she writes.

Have you been charmed by the beauty of glass?   Have you wanted to make your home prettier with your very own hand- made stuff?
 

Then glass painting is for you....

Glass painting,is one of the most simplest and easiest of all other fine arts.  All one needs is glass, glass colours, glass liner and some ideas.

Here are some simple DIY glass art ideas for you.

Materials required:

• Glass colours (water based/solvent based)*
• glass outliner(preferably black)/ 3-D outliner
• fabric glue( optional),permanent marker(black)
• few tooth picks,a needle
• a piece of rag 
• finally glass :)

For Glass:  glass sheet, glass cup, an old bottle, jar,OHP sheet or any glass object you wish to paint on.

If you are doing the painting on a cup/jar/ bottle, then you can choose simple free hand designs such as flowers, bamboo, grapevine, fruits, abstract designs, etc....

To try  a framed glass painting, you will have to draw the design on a sheet of paper and trace it on the glass.  If you are not good at drawing, don’t worry. There are plenty of designs available on the web.  All you need to do is to take a copy of the design and trace it on to the glass.

Design being traced onto the glass

After having selected the design and the object,you will have to draw the design on the glass.

Place the design sheet beneath the surface of the glass sheet with the painting surface facing you.  Carefully tape the sheet to the glass on the edges. Make a trace of the design on the glass using a permanent marker.  Remove the background design sheet and place the glass on a clear light background.  Outline the design that has been traced using glass outliner.Make sure that the outline is not too thick.  To make the outline fine, remove excess outliner using a piece of cloth or cotton wrapped around the tooth pick.

Let the outline dry.It could take about 2 to 5 hours.  After it is dry,take a wet piece of cloth (not soggy) and gently wipe off the outline of the permanent marker.  You may use tooth pick to wipe off the marker at narrow areas of the design.  Now it’s time to paint! :)

Colors being carefully filled

Choose what colours suit the painting the best.  Start out with the dark colours first (because if light colours leak into dark areas, it won’t be much noticeable but if dark colours leak into light areas, the painting could go messy).  Keep the glass on a flat surface, do not keep the glass slanted[important],take the glass colour and fill in the paint using the nozzle provided in the glass painting kit.  If you are using water based glass colours,squeeze the bottle gently and let the colour fill** in smoothly.  (If you squeeze the bottle hard then the colour could spurt out and ruin it all).  Spread the liquid (colour) evenly with the nozzle as you cover the area.  As you paint, using a needle, pop the bubbles that are formed.  If not they will leave tiny holes (carters) in the painting after the painting has dried.  Never shake the bottle before use.  It can cause lot of bubbles. Wipe of the excess colour if it has leaked into other areas.  Fill in all dark colours first and let it dry (takes about 6- 8 hrs).After this, fill in the light colours.  If you are confident that you won’t make mistakes like letting the colour leak into other areas, you may fill all colours at once.  To avoid dust formation on the painting, cover the glass painting with a tray/cardboard box until it is dry.

The painting can now be framed.

Painting made by my Niece under my guidance

Tips

1. To make simple designs more attractive, use glitter outliners or 3D outliners.
2. To give the painting an embossed effect,fill the area with a layer of fabric glue before painting.Let the glue dry completely before painting on it.
3. Make sure the design does not involve too much intricacies.Glass painting looks good only when the design is simple and neat.
4. For simple stained glass designs like flowers,crumpled aluminium foil sheet can be made as background while framing the painting.
5. Like wise, you may try painting clear wine bottles and use them as planters. (A money plant (pothos) in a clear glass bottle with simple design looks beautiful).
6. You can paint incandescent bulbs,make a sunlight catcher, a photo frame,lamp shade and much more... :)

*For beginners, I suggest using water based glass colours since they are easy to handle.The painting can be corrected easily when one uses water based glass colours.As you gain experience, you may try solvent based glass colours.

You  can use Fevicryl glass colours/Camel glass colours or a similar kind available at the store.

**Make sure not to make the layer of paint thick (especially water based colours).It can take really long time to dry and can leak into other colours as it dries.The colour must just cover the area and the layer must not exceed half the thickness of the outliner.

Liniking this to

1.  Colors Dekor - weekly story
2. Joyful stamper
3.  Between Naps on the porch