Lighthouse Window Done and Delivered!

I finally got the lighthouse window finished and delivered to my friend last night.  She had given me the window and the paints around Thanksgiving but then my husband got sick and was in the hospital for a week and all sorts of other things came up (Christmas being one of them) and I just finally got it done.  Here is the finished product:

I never claimed to be an artist mind, you (I wish!) and especially as it was my very first time painting with glass paint, this was quite a challenge for me.  The glass paint is really thin and the colors are deceiving.  I'd paint on a layer of light blue and it would dry dark blue. A finished color of black when on light grey.  I could go on and on :)  I had to blend so many colors to get what I thought the final result would be and then it would dry completely differently and I'd have to touch up (and usually scrape it off and start again) many times.

What I finally wound up doing was making sure that all the paint that was actually touching the glass was the glass paint (so it would stick well) and then going over it with some acrylic and glass paint blend.   Also, I painted white caps in the water, but it dried blending in with the blue apparently...  it was SO CONFUSING.

So anyway...my hope was that the glass paint being stuck to the glass and then the acrylic going on to the glass paint would all stick together well enough and not scrape off.  (I told my friend to tack on a piece of white cardboard or poster board to the bad side so nobody could accidentally scrape any paint off just to be on the safe side).

I used my new Silhouette Cameo to cut out the black text from black vinyl and applied that to the GOOD side (the side you see and the opposite side from the side I painted on).  It was the first time I'd used my Cameo other than a few test runs with cardstock, so it was nice that that turned out so well.  I learned a lesson with that in that IF I ever paint on glass again and someone wants text overtop of it, to PUT THE TEXT ON FIRST :)  That way I can put a ruler on the other side of the glass to line it up better when I apply the letters. THEN paint it.  (Live and learn, right? )

This is an in-process picture.  See how I painted the white caps?

(This is the bad side...the side I painted on).  White caps with lots of light blue painted in with the darker blue to make the water look kind of stormy.  Well you can see from the finished picture above, it did not dry that way. It turned out all blue (ok...we all know blue is my absolute favorite color, but come on...).  I made sure the white was touching the window too, and not just painted overtop as you wouldn't see it from the other side if it wasn't touching the glass.  Apparently it dried transparent or something.  Weird..  This was huge lesson in painting on glass with glass paint for me. I have lots to learn if I attempt this again! :)

See the "black" lighthouse top when the paint was wet?:

Grey :)

And the bottom of the lighthouse that's made from light brown bricks separated by dark brown lines?

Wet Paint.  Two distinct colors:

Dried Paint.  Same color:

The browns were a lot MORE uniform before I painted a coat of light brown acrylic over them on the opposite side which brought some dimension out.

The two colors of brown were "Cocoa" and "Root Beer Frost".  You'd guess the Root Beer Frost would be the light brown right (Frost...)?  Nope...it was the dark brown.  The cocoa was the light brown (though both dried dark...ugh).  I don't get it!

And due to the weird brown colors issue, what's supposed to be rocks around the lighthouse looks more like sand (my husband said..."Oh that sand looks good!"  Sand? Arghh...

But...I guess with all the tinkering around I did with the acrylic paints and whatnot, people seem to like it :) I just wish the colors had been true to their names and the way the packaging made them look like they would be when dry and I hadn't had to tinker with mixing in acrylics to get the proper color.  Then it would have been a pretty translucent paint.  I will say however, that I really like the way the sky turned out. 

I also like the way the text looks sitting on TOP of the glass and how it casts a shadow onto the painted area below it. That was a happy accident :)

I'm glad the project is finally done and finally delivered to my sweet, patient friend who seems happy with it :)  I'm glad also, that I did tackle something new. I love learning and working through unexpected things that come up to try to solve a problem (with creative things anyway) to create a work around.  Thanks for helping me try something new, Wilma!

On to the next project and getting to know my Cameo better too!