Lesson 7: Applying Paint and Etching Cream to Glass
Reverse Painting
If you stick to painting exterior surfaces, you may never need to learn about reverse painting. No one is likely to do much damage to the outside of a bottle or bowl with cutlery. But should you wish to paint a plate, on which people may be wielding a knife and fork, you are best off painting the underside of the plate to avoid the wear and tear. In this case, you will neep to do some reverse painting.
Reverse painting also comes in handy when painting a bowl or anything where we are likely to be looking into it as opposed to mainly seeing the outside of it. And you can create amazing effects with depth and color if you use both regular and reverse painting on clear glass. For instance, painting the top side of a plate is safe if you paint only the rim. But try painting some things on the underside of the rim as well as the top and you've created a truly interesting effect.
What is reverse painting?
Actually, it means painting things in the opposite order that you would normally paint them. First, the fine details and highlights then the shadows and finally the basecoat. For instance, if you were painting a Monarch butterfly on top of a plate, you'd begin with an orange basecoat, and then fill in the black areas of the wings and the green body, next any shadows that give an illusion of depth and finally the white highlights on top of it all. But in reverse painting you'd do the opposite, first painting the highlights on wings and body,. Then the shadows, followed by the black outlines of the wings and wing area. Finally, you would fill in the orange "basecoat" and the green "basecoat" for the body. It may look odd on the bottom of the plate, but just right when you turn it over.
Another way of thinking of it is that you first paint anything that would seem closest to the viewer, then gradually paint those things slightly farther away ending with that which is most distant. Clouds seem closer than sky and so are painted first. White and bright colors (highlights) appear close while dark colors recede, so white is applied first and black last. If you were painting fish under water, you would paint the water first and then the fish – but that would requite transparent paint.
Transparent paints are easier to use when attempting a reverse painting than are the opaques, because that see-through quality allows you some leeway. In fact, I sometimes add a few highlights under the main or "basecoat" color just to emphasize the lightness, even if I have already painted a white or pale foreground.
Take something easy, like this reverse painted ivy to see what I mean. You paint the outline first, then the leaf veins and then the green. Simple, no? For something a lot more sophisticated look at this example of the reverse painting process.
Start small. Practice on old scraps of glass, or on sun catcher shapes available at the crafts store, You can always wash them off and start over if you're not quite satisfied.
The plate at the top of this page was reverse painted. The outline went down first, then the veining on the leaf and flower petals. Then the leaves were painted in the palest green, followed by deeper shades of green where shadowing was needed. Clematis petals were painted in white. Finally the pink shadowing was added to each petal. Had I reversed the process and added the white last the pink color would be much more intense than the blush of color that I wanted.
