Glass Block Lights: Learn How to Paint Your Glass Block Light
Painting on glass is an exciting and stimulating exercise. You can use your creative and artistic talents to paint an illusion of your fancy in glass. Colors of glass are influenced by its surrounding or what is in it. With innovative architectural designs, painted glass blocks have become very popular today as it has a unique and wonderful effect when letting the light pass through rays of brilliant colors. Painted glass were commonly used in the past in decorating churches but with novel innovative designs entering the market today it has become a dynamic architectural concept in decorating houses, especially for bath rooms and conservatories.
If you are making your own glass block light you will need to paint it yourself. Painting on glass is something very easy and gives you a lot of fun in trying out various designs and ideas and a useful way in putting your creative imaginations into reality. Read on to find out how to do it yourself.
Before you start the task, have the following items within reach.
- Glass paint in different colors
- A glass block
- Stencil on your selected design
- Glass paint outliner
- Palette and sable brushes
If you are painting for the first time, the most suitable paint is water based glass paint. Water based paint is free of toxic and does not require separate mixing. If you heat your block in an oven, the paint will set stronger. But before putting the block in the oven you will have to check the quality of glass to see it will withstand the heat without cracking. If you are making a decorative glass block light even air setting paint will be sufficient.
After cleaning the block properly by applying some glass cleaner, you should place the sticky stencil on the glass block on the part you want the design to show. If you don't have a creative design of your own you can browse our offers for a wonderful array of designs.
After placing the stencil on the block, apply an undercoat or a primer. Your glass paint user guide will indicate if you need to use primer before applying paint. Now you can outline your design with a paint outliner. When you outline, it will avoid glass paint running all over the block by accumulating extra paint on the outlined edges. Leave the block for about four hours so that it will dry properly. You must read the instructions carefully to see if your paint specifies a different time to dry off.
Now you are ready to start painting on the block. First take a small amount of paint on to the palette. Experiment by painting a small portion of the block with a sable brush. If it comes out satisfactorily you can continue your work until the whole design is completed. You will need to change brushes in different numbers or sizes to compliment large areas or small areas accordingly.
If you used an oven dry paint, now you can place the glass block in an oven and set the fire according to paint type specifications. Once the oven is switched off let the block cool inside for some time.
There are various types of paints available today. You can experiment wonderful designs such as frosted, metallic etc. When you blend your paint color with opaque white you can create a beautiful frosted effect in your glass block light. It will look beautiful when decorated on your special evenings and make you and others happy to see an enchanting self-made creation.
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