Recently I was invited over to my mom’s friend’s house to paint glass. I’ve painted several things–canvases, paper, flower pots, houses, walls–but not glass, so I thought I’d try. I brought a little glass and a set of three clear pitchers to paint. (I don’t have a picture of the glass, but I’ll paint more as the original designs wear off & post them together.)

It was sometimes tricky to paint consistently on the curvy sides–to keep a smooth, continuous stroke and to apply a consistent amount/thickness of paint. Only one thing for it: practice.

If you want to try this on your own, here are the steps:

• Step 1. Find clear objects. (Granted, you can paint just about anything; it doesn’t have to be glass.)
• Step 2. Gather art supplies: brushes of different sizes, water to clean them, paints, something to mix colors on if you want to, a varnish, and a cleaning solution.
  • Notes: We used little tubs of a special acrylic paint for glass, ceramics, etc. (PermaGloss, maybe? The name had “perma” in it. DecoArt is another brand.) The paints seemed smoother & more liquidy than my regular acrylic paints. You might be able to use regular acrylics, but I don’t know for sure since I have not experimented with them. I hope to some time.
• Step 3. Clean the objects to be painted. Wash with soap & water. Dry. Make sure there is no lint on them. Then, using a brush, apply a layer of cleaning solution. We used a bottle of some sort of craft cleaner–basically rubbing alcohol. Anything of that sort would do. Let dry (10 minutes should be sufficient for the alcohol solution to  dissolve).
• Step 4. Imagine! What do you want to paint? You can sketch some designs on small pieces of paper and tape them to the inside of the glass and use them as a template, or you can paint freehand.
• Step 5. Paint. If you mess up, you can wipe away the offending paint with a moist paper towel & then a dry one to remove streaks.
• Step 6. Let the objects dry completely once you have finished painting. Acrylics dry quickly (in a matter of minutes), but I would leave them alone longer. You can clean your brushes while you wait.
• Step 7. Apply enamel with a clean, dry brush. Cover only the areas you painted. We used DuraClear gloss & satin varnishes (polyurethane).
• Step 8. Let objects stand 10 days while gloss settles, cures, dries, & whatever other verbs it does. Put the objects in a safe place out of the way of activity, dust, pets, and such. After 10 days, your newly painted objects will be dishwasher-safe and ready to use!

You can also do this to cover chips on dishes! Can you find where I repainted this china plate? (I promise it’s not where the reflections are.) Click to enlarge; it’ll help the looking.

The seas have been silent these past two months, but now I’m back on board with what I hope is a fun update!

Last week, we went to my great-uncle Joe’s house. (He’s going on 96, and though he needs help with a few things, he’s on his feet and pretty perky!) As you may recall, I completed two paintings of Moran tugboats Joe designed; they’re hanging in his TV room. Uncle Joe lives on the water, so we got to sail his dinghy, Magatha, a few times. First time I’ve sailed a vessel in years!

The photo is not particularly flattering, but the occasion reminded me of something:

Racing Pajamas without the racing or the pajamas.

Fun facts:

• The dinghy in Racing Pajamas is modeled off the Dyer Dhow.
• Uncle Joe’s dinghy is a Dyer, as is one of the sailing dinghies I had (and we still have) when I was little. Can you see the similarities between the boat in the photo and the illustration?
• I got the idea to name Hattie & Aidan’s dinghy Leviathan from Uncle Joe. After my mom bought our Dyer many years ago, he said half-jokingly in his New York accent, “Oh, you ought to call it Leviathan. I think that’s a great name for a little boat!”

You can also order Racing Pajamas and my other books and get some Christmas shopping done early! (Email or call.)

Smooth sailing & happy Constitution week!

A few nights ago, I was thinking about what to post next; soon after, my mom came into my room and plopped a stack of huge presentation posters on the table. They were the pages from a presentation I did for 4-H when I was 14 (possibly 13).

When I was in 4-H, every year, we kids created and gave informative presentations on topics of our choice to develop public speaking skills. My 4-H club was very horse-focused, so most of the kids did horse- or farm-related presentations, but anyone could pick whatever topic he or she wanted. First, presenters spoke at their own 4-H clubs, then before a panel of judges at a county-level competition, and then, if presenters placed high enough, at the state level. (There might have been a regional/district level,  too. Or maybe the county level was actually a district level. I do know I earned gold at one level and silver at the next.) The first year I did a presentation, I did it on cat senses.

You may be wondering, “What does this have to do with your art blog?”

The second year, I did one on anime.

I remember that I wanted to do something that would fall into the “other” category and research to learn more about something I already like. And, you know, getting to draw was a perk.

So just for fun, I’m posting photos of some of the art I drew about a decade ago. (No fancy photo editing–just havin’ fun this time.)

Cover page. Rocking the rainbow gradient and Comic Sans (to the dismay of every professional graphic designer.) Click to enlarge.

I drew the elf mage; the other is a print-out from Yu Yu Hakusho. This was on a page explaining different genres (shounen, shoujo, mecha, etc.) If you look closely, you can see that I actually have 2 copies of that image, one pasted on top of the other. That’s because water dripped on the first one, and I didn’t want water spots to show up on my presentation: that would be shabby! Time has now peeled my secret away. I also did a black & white re-drawing of that picture in my sketchbook, eliminating the 2 figures in the middle.

Sample expression & eyes

Little Indian Bomb Psycho (original character whose major appearances were on the corners of looseleaf notes)

Pikachu! (‘Twould be near blasphemy to do an anime presentation and not mention Pokemon.)

A good word to end on.

Several of my regular readers have been to at least one of my homes during my lifetime and will recognize these 2 paintings that my grandfather’s friend Jack Haines did (both copies, not original artwork):

After moving a few times and general brittling, the paintings have been chipping in several places, so my mom asked me to restore them. (“Touch up” might be more accurate than “restore,” but “painting restoration” sounds more impressive that “painting touch-ups.”) You can click on any of the images to get a closer (bigger) view.

Barn Trouble Spots: 1. Cracks by wheel; 2. Foot

After:

Less than Shipshape: 1. Sky (top left corner); 2. Hole; 3. Sky (above mast)

Shipshape:

The barn was easy to match colors. I used perhaps 2 or 3 earth tones plus black. I tried to paint very gently since some of the chips flaked off even more while I worked on them.

The ship was definitely trickier, especially the sky. At first glance, most people would say it’s grey-blue, but close up, the variations in color become more apparent. There are blues, greys, greens, and yellows, all in different proportions. There are also several values (lights & darks) within the sky, so a light grey-green in one place might blend well into one spot in the painting, but elsewhere it might be too dark or not blue enough. Eventually I mixed some good matches, and the painting looks pretty good!

Just may-be we’ll have an update this month. Due to a slurry of new and/or increased duties and demands (church board, extensive house cleaning & clearing, etc.), my posts were pushed aside in favor of these higher priorities, but I wanted to make sure I got at least one post up before May ends. So here we are.

There isn’t much new to report; mainly, I’ve just been plodding along with various projects most of you already know a little something about: Aerth, Detective Butler, and John Churchmouse, to name a few. I have also done some sketches for a new children’s book commission (birdie below) and I am writing a first (and naturally quite rough) draft of a novel.

There you have it. Basic and brief. The next post will come sooner than this one did.