Reverse Glass Painting - The Only Tools You

By Sally Willson

The tools needed for painting in reverse on glass are really very simple and limited. The initial cost of the materials can be shaved down to a minimum if you prefer to start out slow. I'll make a list of things you'll need, and I would be willing to guess that you already have at least half, if not most of them somewhere around the house.

1) A small to medium table to work on. It can be as simple as 2 saw horses with short pine planks over the top.

2) A pane of glass with a frame that fits. If you don't mind starting with small paintings, The local dollar store should have 8" x 10" frames.

3) A large brush, 1" to 3" wide.

4) Maybe 2 small round brushes, a size 0 and a size 2

5) manicure sticks, tooth picks, or wooden barbeque skewers

6) Q-Tips

7) A flat pallet knife for mixing paints, (A putty knife would do in a pinch)

8) Clean styrofoam plates or trays, The plastic lids to coffee cans are great for this, too.

9) masking tape

10) Razor blade or a utility knife

11) Paint. It does not matter whether the paint is water based, acrylic, or oil paint. It only needs to adhere to the glass, and any of these will.

12) Paint thinner, it's very inexpensive, and you shouldn't even need a full quart for one painting.

13) A few small clean rags.

Now when you think about it, this is really not a lot of investment. Beyond this small list of coarse, a subject for the painting is needed, but that is where your imagination is going to kick in. This is where the fun starts! After you do a few paintings, you're naturally going to want to upgrade your tools. If the one gallon cans of left over house paint made a big mess, you may decide to go purchase the small tubes of paint, available in art supply stores. I paint with oils, so I also need varnish to thin my paints with. You may need more brushes if you're going to continue reverse glass painting. From my own experience of 8 years of reverse glass painting, I can safely say that with time, they do get better. So, I wish you the best of luck! Ready, set, start painting!

Copyright 2007 - Sally Willson

View my reverse paintings on glass at my website http://reversepaintinglady.com . I also offer information there about the origin of glass, the history of glass, and the multitude of ways that people have used and decorated glass over the centuries. Be sure to check out my "how to" section. I can be reached by email at sallywillson@yahoo.com if you should have any questions.