Painted Wine Glasses and Dishes

Here are some more charity auction bound items.  My friend, who runs the auction, brings me lots of surfaces to paint for donation.  Earlier this year she brought me these dollar store wine glasses.  They look pretty ritzy all painted up pretty, don't they?  Glass painting is very easy but there are some things to remember:

Use paint specially made for glass.  I have a full set of Folk Art Enamels that I got years ago at a painting convention.  This paint is not opaque and when I first used them I was disappointed in how they looked on glass....every brush stroke showed and it was very difficult to get shadows and highlights..  I solved my concerns by putting a thick stroke of paint where I wanted the shadows and I also found that outlining the elements helps pull the design together.  This is a free handed design I created as I went.

TIP:  Handle your glass by the stem as oils from your hand may compromise the paint's adhesiveness.

To get thin even lines, I use a tip that screws onto my paint bottle.  TIP:  Use a stylus or back of a paint brush to add dots.

 

Another thing my friend brought me was a set of plain white dishes.  I painted these the same way as the wine glasses.  You'll notice that the glass paint is not as opaque on these.  With the Folk Art Enamels you can either bake them or let them sit for 21 days to cure.  I've found that when I bake them (following the instructions) sometimes the paint can bleed a bit.  If I can, I always prefer to let them air cure.

Here's a close up of the bowl design.  TIP:  To keep the design even, I use a grease pen and ruler and make small marks here and there around the piece as a guide.

When I paint items for Christmas, I love using the gold paint.  It really adds a bit of glitz.