Glass

I like to burn a candle when I'm working, but with all the paper and brushes and flammable stuff I was a little concerned about an open flame.

But my sister-in-law bought me these adorable little lanterns, so I can burn my candle and still paint and not worry about torching the place with a misplaced paper towel that has a little paint thinner on it (yikes).  This little square lantern has wirework that looks like wrought iron on it.

The other one she got me, however, has open panes of glass and no wirework, soooo... I decided to play with it today, lest I take my painting too seriously.  Time to have a little fun with something different (that was the idea this month, anyway).

I'm using Plaid's Gallery Glass paints, which I bought at Hobby Lobby.  Verdict:  I'm not impressed.  The liquid leading is a pain in the butt to work with and get a straight line, even for someone who works with henna pretty frequently, and, I might say, not too badly either ;)  It made me wonder about squeezing this stuff into a henna cone and trying it that way... once the plastic squeezy container is not full it's not going to be easy to work with at all.  I had to smooth the lines with a toothpick (a process I am also familiar with from working with henna), but the leading dries pretty quick and it wasn't always as successful as I'd hope for.

I sketched out my sun/moon design on graph paper and then used the liquid leading to trace it on the glass... in the end I had to simplify my design a lot because of the thickness of the lines.  

Here it is with the leading in place.  I can't decide if I need to put the design facing in or facing out on the lantern.  We'll see.

And here are all the panels, painted but still wet (which means they're much more opaque than they'll end up).  You can see the left-most one turning transparent as it dries. 

The fact that the color paints don't look anything like they're going to when they're dry is another issue.  The "poppy orange" rays on the sun looked pink, wet.  And some of the white areas will be clear and others white.  I like the look of the brighter colors much better than the paler ones.  I'm anxious to see how this turns out, now.

Some of the panes were still a little wet when I put them in the lantern but it was okay.   I think I'd like to try this project again with something a little more abstract, and maybe try the henna cone trick with the leading :)

Have a wonderful, creative day, and don't forget... if you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong.