Glass Painting Is Really, REALLY Easy! (Glass Painting)

Member Name: gailmill

Product:	Glass Painting
Date:	10/05/01 (208 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: easy, inexpensive, decorative

Disadvantages: Outliner needs time to dry, Paint should be 'flooded'

Glass painting is really, really easy. You really don’t need a lot of materials .... in fact it is a pastime that needs very few compared with other more complicated crafts. Added to this is the wonderful effects you can get without having to be Van Gogh! Glass painting has an immediacy and naivity to it so it doesn’t matter if your first attempts don’t look like artistic masterpieces.

Painting on glass (and other suitable materials such as acetate, plastic, mirror and even tin cans) has become extremely popular in recent years. Every craft fair these days has a painted glass stall, and I remember a few years ago seeing some exquisite perfume bottles at a craft market painted in the most sumptuous colours and patterns. I now know of course that these items are in fact easy to make. Although the results are extremely beautiful, the technique is surprisingly easy to do, even for the complete novice.

Basically, what you need are only four major items to paint on glass;

1: Your base. This can be acetate film, mirror, plastic boxes and containers, even ordinary glass jars and bottles which we throw out of our households every week. In fact throwaways are the best things to start with because you are not losing anything should you not be very happy with your first results.

2: Brushes

3: Glass paint. Water or solvent based. Water based ones are the easiest to work with as you don’t need a medium to mix them with or to clean brushes with. These paints come in sets or can be purchased individually. To buy single bottles will cost you approximately £2.50. They come in approximately 25 shades including clear.

4: Relief outliner. Cerne relief, which comes in many colours such as black, copper, gold, old gold, silver etc., is the better known brand, although there are other makes.
These outliners come in tubes with a nozzle at the end through which the paint is squeezed through onto your chosen
surface. These tubes cost approximately £1.75 to buy individually.

I must just say here though, that I often use fabric outliner paint, such as the Tulip brand, for outlining. These paints come in a multitude of colours, including white and cream; not only the metallic ones.

They also come in glitter and pearl shades. These outliners, like actual glass painting outliners, have long ‘nozzles’ which you ‘draw’ the pattern out with onto your base. If you want to do things by the book however, then use glass paining outliner.

To follow is a very basic instruction for painting on any glass object. These instructions apply to any type of work, be it a three dimensional object such as a bottle, or a flat surface such as a mirror. As you will see however, there really is nothing to it! Following are some projects which are very easy to follow to give you some practice in your new craft.

Basic Glass painting
1; Clean your glass bottle or jar thoroughly. Using ‘leading in a tube’ (Cerne relief) or fabric relief paint, draw the outline of your pattern on the surface of the glass. Leave this outliner to dry completely. This will take a couple of hours.

2; When your outliner is dry fill in each section with the glass paint. You may need to practice on small pieces first, as glass paint has a unique quality to it and takes a bit of getting used to. Paint has to be *flooded* rather than painted onto the surface of the glass. Leave to dry thoroughly as it goes tacky as it dries therefore there is the risk of leaving fingerprints on the surface of your painted objects.

Painting on glass is one of the easiest and most delightful ways of transforming items which would usually be just tossed in the bin, namely, empty jars, bottles and glass containers. I have literally dozens of glass items around my house decorated with all manner of patterns and effects. I also give decorated coffee or
sweet jars as presents. They cost next to nothing to make, but always elicit the most enthusiastic response from the receiver.

It is little known, but you can actually paint onto metallic surfaces such as silver foil or tin cans with glass paint and relief too.

Summary: