This weeks theme is sunflowers, inspired by a commission and the fact that I’ve grown some from seed. Last year I had a monster sunflower:
As you can imagine this produced a lot of seed. Some went to the birds and I planted a few seeds but to my dismay 3 of the young plants have already been eaten by slugs, despite nasty slug pellets! I don’t normally resort to slug pellets but we’ve had so much rain the garden has an abundance of slugs and snails. At least I still have 4 plants and I can’t wait to see if they become monster ones or revert back to normal ones. So I’ve painted the sunflower vase commission and created a sunflower treasury on Etsy, which can’t be eaten and hopefully keep the sun shining!
My latest creation involved some upcycling. I love it when I find vintage glassware, usually in a charity shop and I’m able to transform the plain pressed glass.
I chose the colours for this piece based on a similair colour scheme for a glass serving dish that sold very quickly. The most important skill for painting pressed glass, along with a good eye for colour, is a steady hand! I usually paint one side and then let it dry before turning the glassware around to paint the other side, which helps prevent smudging as well as drips. The glass is then baked, making it washable. I’m always a little nervous when doing this with vintage glassware but so far I’ve only had one mishap!
So beautiful!!
What a clever idea to paint vintage glass.
Last year’s sunflowers were amazing. Is the secret in the seeds or how you care for the plants?
I would say it is the seeds. A friend gave me 2 small sunflower plants last year, one became the monster and the other was just an ordinary single yellow flower! My friend was a bit envious as all hers were normal ones, in recompense I did give her loads of seeds.
So far I don’t know if any of the sibling plants will be monster ones. It doesn’t look like it, so last years was probably a one off (possibly seed mutation) but then we’ve not had much sun yet!
Hi Linda, I use Pebeo glass paints and occasionally Anita’s, I’ve not tried Marabu. Yes, patience is another requirement as you need to leave the paint to dry before adding anymore. It goes tacky if you try to paint over paint thats not dry, having learnt from experience!
Glad you like the vintage dish, thank you.
Annabel
Love the vintage dish and what a lovely job you have done painting it. I’ve tried glass painting, but I find the hardest thing is the steady hand and I’m a little too impatient. Which glass paints do you use? I’ve bought pebeo and Marabu GlasART, I think I prefer the Marabu though. Linda x