How to Paint on Glass (Reverse Glass Painting)

From The DIYnetwork, lots of good information was given by author and artist Edie Stockstill.

Reverse painting on glass looks more complicated than it is. It requires painting a design on one side of glass that is viewed from the other side.

Materials: Traced or freehand design, Glass, Black acrylic-enamel paint, several colors of acrylic-enamel paint, long liner brush, small paintbrushes, water

Begin by choosing a design to duplicate. Trace the design or draw one freehand. Tape the traced pattern on the right side of the glass -- the side that will be viewed.

Use acrylic enamel (which is a permanent glass paint) and a long liner brush to begin painting the outline of the pattern on the reverse side of the glass. After main colors have dried, begin adding accent colors.

So I chose a dark blue, an orange, and a light yellow-orange color of acrylic enamel, using the color wheel and split complementary colors which I thought would be effective for a butterfly image. The butterfly is a piece of clip art found under a search engine on the internet. I first drew the outline of a butterfly on the bottom side of the platter and began painting on the bottom, ignoring the step recommended for tracing your image on the "right side" of the glass. Either way would work.

The DIY Network also gives this information:

Anything that is glass can be used to paint on. The plainer the glass the better to paint on. Do not let the painted glass sit in hot soapy sink for long because other objects bump up against it and can chip it. Just paint simple designs on your glassware. You do not want to cover the entire glass with paint, because part of the beauty of the glass is being able to see what is inside. Once you have painted your design on the glassware, let it cure for at least 24 hours. Make sure your oven is off and then put your glassware in and bake at 325 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes but no longer because the colors will change.

Above is a picture of the platter painted with a butterfly (set atop a red rug background) before it was popped into the oven for a quick bake. The colors look more brilliant than the digital camera captured, but you get the idea of this easy project.

My friend Janet will be the recipient of this painted platter, even though she asked me to do this for her ages ago. Did you forget, Janet?

Windows Movie Maker - Song & Spring Pictures to Video

I have been trying out a new craft on my computer through the free Windows program called "Movie Maker". Since I had lots of digital pictures of growing flowers and some original oil paintings of flowers, I decided to marry them and created this video. Superimposed into the video is the upbeat song from the recent movie JUNO. This might give you a smile (just click on the arrow on the blue screen below).

lyrics from the movie JUNO

If I was a flower growing wild and free
All I'd want is you to be my sweet honey bee.
And if I was a tree growing tall and green
All I'd want is you to shade me and be my leaves

If I was a flower growing wild and free
All I'd want is you to be my sweet honey bee.
And if I was a tree growing tall and green
All I'd want is you to shade me and be my leaves

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

If you were a river in the mountains tall,
The rumble of your water would be my call.
If you were the winter, I know I'd be the snow
Just as long as you were with me, let the cold winds blow

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

If you were a wink, I'd be a nod
If you were a seed, well I'd be a pod.
If you were the floor, I'd wanna be the rug
And if you were a kiss, I know I'd be a hug

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

If you were the wood, I'd be the fire.
If you were the love, I'd be the desire.
If you were a castle, I'd be your moat,
And if you were an ocean, I'd learn to float.

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

By Barry Polisar (from Polisar)

Watercolor Montage - Art

Have you ever wanted to create a collage or montage of related subjects as an object 'd art? It is fun and relatively easy to make one using your computer and most associated photo capturing software.

I was reared in the south where magnolia blooms were present in my grandparents' yard for most of the spring and early summer months. Their fragrance holds a fond memory for me. My grandmother used to clip those sweetly aromatic magnolia blossoms in the early morning and put a few in a vase that always stayed on her kitchen window sill.

Mom (my grandmother) has been deceased for over twenty years. In remembrance of her life, I wanted to paint a magnolia blossom and somehow incorporate that image onto a piece of her original, copyrighted sheet music. This montage would be a unique memoriam to her talented life as a musician and strong Christian teacher.

Here are the steps to make your own montage:

obtain your image (in this case, an original watercolor painting of a magnolia) and take a picture of it with digital camera, saving it to your computer in a temporary folder containing pictures

obtain second image (I used a piece of my grandmother's sheet music which I scanned and saved to my computer in a temporary file)

obtain and save third (or more) object in the preceding manner (the back of my montage includes copyrights from 1921, the year some of this music was copyrighted in Canada)

using the picture software on your computer, compose the montage and choose the "collage" feature (most all software has this type editing choice)

...in this case, I blended both images together, creating a soft, ethereal effect.

Here is image #1, which is a digital copy of the original 5" x 7" painting, retrieved and held in a temporary file:

After choosing the "collage" feature on the software, the resulting image (left) was created after incorporating the two pictures together (the digital picture of the painting and the scanned copy of the sheet music) via the tricky software.

Now YOU can make a montage!