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Glass painting is easier than it looks

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Glass painting is easier than it looks

Glass painting is easier than it looks

If you’ve ever painted your living or working space, you know that getting professional results can be a challenge. You want a professional, finished look, but no matter how careful you are, you never seem to get the desired results. The good news is that glass painting is easy to do and delivers a beautiful finish. Even better, glass painting doesn’t require special tools or training.

Professional results from glass painting

Working with glass surfaces is incredibly easy. It’s also a very forgiving surface when it comes to cleaning up drips and imperfections. Here are four expert tips to ensure that you get the right result every time.

Prepare your surface! The biggest mistake people make when painting (anything) occurs even before they apply a single drop of paint. Good surface preparation ensures that you have a good result. Porous surfaces require a lot of surface preparation. Small holes, scratches, chips and other mishaps will all show through the paint. Glass doesn’t have any of these issues, but you still need to do proper surface prep. Clean the glass surface with alcohol and steel wool to remove any dust, dirt, adhesive or anything else that might have dried on the glass surface. Working with a perfectly clean surface will yield the best finish.

Work slowly! There’s no point in racing through a painting project. Working slowly ensures that you get smooth, even coverage across your entire surface. One mistake people often make when the painting is skimping on the number of coats they apply. If you’ve ever painted a surface and later thought that the paint “dried to a different color,” it’s probably because you didn’t apply enough coats of paint. Generally, a single coat of paint won’t offer enough coverage, regardless of the surface you’re working on.

Let the paint dry! This goes along with Tip #2. Allow each coat of paint to dry fully before you add another coat. A paint can be dry to the touch in a few minutes, but only the surface paint molecules are dry. Let the paint sit for 2-4 hours after applying another coat. This allows the solvents below the surface to evaporate properly. It also makes the paint more durable.

Don’t wait to clean up your mistakes! Clean up excess paint, spills and drips sooner rather than later. Cleaning up wet paint is much easier than cleaning up dry paint, so keep a wet sponge or cloth handy to wipe out your drips. If you have to remove dry glass paint for any reason, you can use a single-edged razor blade to get the paint off the glass surface, up to a point. Glassprimer™ glass paint alters the surface of the glass. Once the paint cures completely, you won’t be able to remove it at all. If you spot an imperfection, smudge, drip, etc., move quickly to clean up your mistake!

Photo Credit: EnKayTee, via Flickr.com

Want to know how to paint glass?

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Want to know how to paint glass?

Want to know how to paint glass?

Creating backpainted glass is easy, but despite that, many people don’t know how to paint glass. The good news is that backpainting glass doesn’t require any special tools or skills. Even better, you can complete a glass painting project in as little as a few hours. Here are a few things to know about painting glass.

When you are planning a glass painting project, plan to use glass paint! Ordinary paints aren’t designed to stick to glass. You can get paint to dry on glass, but it won’t stay put, and it won’t stand up to humidity, sunlight or mechanical contact. Glass paint bonds to the surface of the glass, and will not chip, fade or peel

Here’s how to paint glass!

The glass is the starting point in a glass paint project. The glass should be cut or sized to fit the final space – whether that’s a wall, a backsplash or a table top. Since you’ll be backpainting the glass, you’ll need enough horizontal work space to move around the glass while you’re painting. You’ll also need to allow the glass to dry between coats. Laying the glass flat means that you can eliminate problems with drips or runs. Since glass is heavy, you’ll need to fully support the glass while you’re working on it. Consider using a large sheet of plywood to support your glass sheet.

Once you have your glass cut, you can start painting. Glass requires minimal surface preparation, but don’t skip this step. To prep the glass surface for painting, you’ll need standard rubbing alcohol, steel wool and the cheapest paper towels you can find. Wash the glass down with the alcohol, and remove any surface dirt with steel wool. Use the paper towel to dry the glass until it’s “squeaky clean.” (Literally.) Don’t be tempted to use expensive paper towels or lint-free cloths. More expensive paper towels will leave paper fibers behind on the glass. The cheapies are definitely the way to go.

Now you can paint! You can apply the paint with whatever painting tools you prefer – brushes, rollers, sponges or sprayers. A high-volume, low-pressure sprayer – which you can find in a home improvement store – will provide the most professional coverage. It will also make your paint go farther! Finally, it will minimize the amount of time you need to wait before applying additional coats of paint.

Installing the finished product

Once your glass is painted and dried, you can install the glass using a quality neutral-cure silicone adhesive. Apply the adhesive to the painted side of the glass. The adhesive will not show through on the reverse side when you hang the glass. If you’re using a very heavy piece of glass, you may want to use mirror mastic for extra strength. Like the silicone adhesive, the mirror mastic will not show through the cured paint.

Glassprimer™ glass paint can be tinted to match any manufacturer’s paint palette. If you’d like more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, or you’d like to place an order, please visit the rest of our site.

Photo Credit: Greg Nehring, via Flickr

Painted glass revives verre églomisé technique

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Painted glass revives verre églomisé technique

Painted glass revives verre églomisé technique

Although back painted glass predates the Roman Empire, a refined version of the technique is making a comeback. Jean-Baptiste Glomy, an 18th century art dealer, revived and popularized the painted glass technique. Verre églomisé refers to a painting technique that uses both a painted design and gilding on glass.

Verre églomisé combines painted glass and gold leaf

Glomy’s original designs were small. Often he made them from picture frames and other small pieces of glass. Over time, other artists adopted the technique and expanded the canvas to include murals, signage and other large-scale images.

The technique requires the artist to create an image in reverse order. The artist applies the gilding and highlights first, then creates the background image on top of the highlights. Verre églomisé art examples created in the Middle Ages still exist.. Glomy didn’t invent the technique, but merely revived it in both Europe and North America.

The original verre églomisé technique used adhesive to apply to gold or silver leaf to the glass. Artists may have used a gelatin or oil-based adhesive. Afterward, they applied steam to the leaf to create a shiny, mirror-like finish. Once the adhesive dried, the artist applied additional colored paints to complete the image. Traditional verre églomisé work often uses plain paint colors because it contrasts well with the metal leaf.

True verre églomisé artwork incorporates a recognizable design into the finished piece. In more modern works, the term can describe backpainted works that use metallic leaf but do not use an obvious design. Painted commercial signs made heavy use of the verre églomisé technique prior to the development of more modern silk screening and UV inkjet printing on glass.

Glassprimer™ glass paint works well on painted glass projects. We also make an excellent glass primer designed especially for UV inkjet printing applications. If you would like more information about our products, or ideas for making decorative painted glass, please visit the rest of our website.

Photo Credit: Jasperdo, via Flickr

Glass painting distinguishes Burmese culture

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Glass painting distinguishes Burmese culture

Glass painting distinguishes Burmese culture

If you follow this blog, you may think of the reverse glass painting technique in a purely decorative way. For centuries, however, Burmese artists employed a reverse glass painting technique to preserve their history.

Glass paintings were stored at a temple

Cultures often use art to preserve their history, and these Burmese glass paintings embody that. The Wat Chong Klang temple in Mae Hong Son, Thailand houses a collection of 185 such paintings that share the tales of various incarnations of Buddha. Burmese artists from Mandalay first brought the paintings to the temple in 1857. The temple displayed the artwork for nearly 150 years, until an earthquake damaged or destroyed many of the images.

Fortunately, an Austin-area artist who saw the images both before and after the earthquake stepped in to help. Judy Jensen, who is an experienced glass painting artist, volunteered to recreate the broken pieces. (Reverse glass painting must be redone – it can’t be repaired once the glass is broken.)

Jensen created a Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds she needed to replace 16 images. That’s nearly 10 percent of the original collection! Jensen said that glass painting isn’t like standard painting. When creating a glass painted image, the artist first applies the details and shadows. Then the artist creates the foreground, and finally adds the background.

Jensen’s Kickstarter campaign caught on and she raised the funds she needed to complete the project. She has worked since 2012 to help replace the damaged panels.

Buddhist imagery plays an important role in the practice of Buddhism. Local artwork often depicts Buddha in one of his known incarnations. The temple paintings reflect the ongoing importance of religion in the Thai culture.

You don’t have to be an artist to incorporate glass painting into your home. You can create simple painted glass pieces, like backsplashes and table tops to create a unique look for your home. For more information about glass painting or to place an order for glass paint, please visit our website.

Photo Credit: Ronan Crowley, via Flickr

Tackle an easy glass painting project this spring

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Tackle a glass painting project this spring

Tackle a glass painting project this spring

Looking for a way to dress up your home or apartment? Consider a glass painting project. You’ll find that painting glass is easy, economical and practical. Glass is quickly becoming a preferred decorating material for residential and commercial applications. Glass painting requires no special tools, and you can complete a small project in as little as one day.

Painting on glass surfaces doesn’t requires special tools, but it does require a special paint. Ordinary paint doesn’t cure on glass because of the unique properties of a glass surface. Ordinary paints work on porous surfaces. The paint “soaks in” to the surface thanks to tiny surface imperfections. The paint dries and cures, and all is well.

Glass painting the easy way

Glass doesn’t have the same surface imperfections that typical construction materials do. There are no tiny surface imperfections that will hold paint, so ordinary paint will dry on a glass surface, but it won’t cure. That means dried paint can be easily removed with a razor blade or paint scraper. Even certain conditions, like high humidity, can reconstitute the paint, making a soft, gooey mess.

That’s where Glassprimer™ glass paint comes in. Glassprimer™ glass paint is specially formulated to change the surface of the glass, so the paint can bond to it permanently. Once the paint is cured, it will not chip or peel. Humidity will not soften the dried paint. Environmental conditions like direct sunlight won’t damage the paint, either.

This makes Glassprimer™ glass paint ideal for glass painting projects like rehabbing a glass tabletop, or a glass room divider. Back painted glass offers a unique look, and the glass surface is easy to clean and maintain. With a painted glass tabletop, you can say goodbye to water stains left by glasses, and damage caused by spills.

You can apply Glassprimer™ glass paint with a brush or roller, although we recommend a high-volume low-pressure paint sprayer. An HVLP sprayer will provide the best, most even coverage and will create a professionally finished appearance.

If you’d like more information about glass painting, or you’d like to order the best glass paint on the market, please visit us at http://www.glasspaint.com.

Photo Credit: Clarence Risher, via Flickr

Bauhaus Glass Paintings Displayed in Dallas

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Bauhaus Glass Paintings Displayed in Dallas

Bauhaus Glass Paintings Displayed in Dallas

The Dallas Museum of Art recently received a pair of Bauhaus glass paintings from the estate of Jim Clark. The paintings, created by Josef Albers, were among the few survivors of the closure of the Bauhaus when it operated in Dessau.

The paintings were shipped in two crates from Europe when Albers and his wife Anni (Fleischmann) Albers emigrated to the United States. One of the crates was damaged in transit and all of the works inside were broken. The Clark gift contains two works from the second, undamaged crate, along with a series of other paintings by Albers.

The glass paintings, entitled Walls and Screens (ca. 1928) and Windows (ca. 1929) feature designs of colored blocks applied to flashed, sandblasted glass. The DMA restored the works to their original condition, to protect them and allow them to be displayed publicly.

Bauhaus was a German art school that operated for just 14 years in the early part of the 20th century, but its legacy is undeniable. The term literally translates to “construction house.” The school was founded in Weimar in 1919 by Walter Gropius. His concept was to bring together all forms of art into one school and reunite the arts with crafts.

Albers was Roman Catholic German schoolteacher who trained as a painter and printmaker in the early 20th century. He worked in many media, but is particularly known for his work with glass. Even though he trained as a painter, Albers created magnificent stained glass pieces, and was asked to join the faculty of the Bauhaus as a stained glass maker in 1922, shortly after the school opened.

Albers fit well with Gropius’ vision of the Bauhaus as a place where arts and crafts came together because he possessed so many practical and aesthetic creative skills. As a faculty member, Albers collaborated with other artists like Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky.

The school moved to Dessau in 1925 and moved again to Berlin in 1932. Its third and last director, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is considered one of the founders of the modernist architecture movement, along with other notable architects like Gropius and Frank Lloyd Wright.

The Bauhaus style in encapsulated in van der Rohe’s “less is more” philosophy. Bauhaus style includes simplicity and functionality. Simplicity lends itself to mass production, and that’s one reason the Bauhaus style became so popular among “ordinary” objects – furniture, decoration and interior design.

Because it was mass producible, the Bauhaus style was also readily deployable following World War II, when European cities were reconstructed and construction boomed in US cities. It made heavy use of common materials and simple, yet highly functional and highly elegant designs.

The Bauhaus closed its doors permanently in 1933, in response to pressure from the Nazi regime. Prominent staff members from the Bauhaus relocated around the world and promulgated the Bauhaus style of art education. Josef and Anni, who was Jewish, moved to the United States following the closure of the Bauhaus. Albers accepted a job at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, thanks in part to a recommendation by noted architect Philip Johnson, who was the curator of the Museum of Modern Art at that time.

For more information about the Albers collection at the DMA, please visit the Dallas Museum of Art website.

Photo Credit: Gaku, via Flickr.com