Preface . . .
I love mirrors and mirror art. In my opinion, a well designed and executed
reverse painted glass sign is one of the most beautiful sights one can behold.
On the other hand, perhaps I am a tad too crazy about mirrored and reverse painted glass.
At any rate, I love the stuff.
The inspiration from this book came from studying the decorative glass often found in slot machines, pinball machines,
and other amusement devices. Also, glass storefronts and countless mirrored and reverse painted signs and 'Pub
Mirrors.'
Combining reverse painted glass and metal leaf is a time-honored technique. At one time, shopkeepers would frequently
hire sign writers (artists that create signs and other graphics) to paint and gild their doors and windows.
To this day, you will still discover the occasional hand painted window or door, but less frequently.
Although signs and vintage reverse painted glass has given me endless inspiration, the skills that are often required
for producing great looking painted glass were skills I often thought I would never be able to learn.
Manufacturing mirrored glass signs in large quantities often requires a fairly involved and complicated process.
A process that is often far too complicated and involved for making decorative mirrors one at a time.
Typically, manufacturers will start by silk-screen printing the glass. If the design contains ten different colors,
the manufacturer must create ten separate silk-screens, one for each color that will appear in the finished graphic.
Then the glass is chemically silvered and a special backing and/or sealer is applied to protect the delicate silver
coating.
Through trial and error after error, I discovered that I could easily create the same visual look with a process
that is far easier to use and considerably less involved.
The visual results look as though a highly complex process was used. The truth is, the process is simple, and absolutely
anyone can use it to create amazing mirror art. Great looking results the very first time.
The glass decorating techniques I will teach you should be a part of every crafter's arsenal because they are extremely
versatile.
You do not need any prior experience; the process you will learn is virtually self-working, and it is almost impossible
to make a mistake. Moreover, if you do make a mistake, it likely does not matter. The mistake can either be fixed
or left as is, because even mistakes can look amazing.
My simplified techniques have countless other uses besides crafts.
Woodworkers can use the process to make decorative cabinet door inserts, back glass, and game tables.
Photographers can use the process to create mirrored and painted inserts for picture frames -my favorite technique,
by the way.
Mosaic tile artists can use the process to produce mirrored mosaic tiles.
Artists can use the process to create beautiful mirror art and graphics.
Greeting card makers can use the process to make mirrored and painted greeting cards. Granted, perhaps mirrored
glass greeting cards are a bit too expensive to send to everyone on your Christmas card list.
There are countless other ways to use the basic process I will teach you.
I have discovered amateur radio operators using the process to make call letter signs and custom car builders using
the process to customize rear-view mirrors and signs for custom car show displays.
What other craft technique can you think of that is as versatile as this technique?
Producing amazing mirror art and glass is very simple, quite straightforward, and you will require very few specialty
supplies. With a few exceptions, you probably have almost everything you need already at hand.
The process is easy to use and the visual results are quite striking.
Unlike the surface decoration techniques occasionally used by some crafters, my techniques allow you to place your
painted and gilded details behind the glass.
The detail work will smoothly blend with the mirror coating to create a striking and unusual visual effect that
is impossible to obtain with any other technique.
Once you try the process, I think you will agree that the techniques taught in this book are clearly superior to
the more commonly used surface decorating techniques.
I recently revised and updated this book. I have added several new chapters about glass silvering in pure gold,
copper, silver, and galena blue.
Something should be said about glass silvering. The term "silvering" generally describes the process
of chemically applying a metallic coating to a glass surface. Regardless of the kind of metal, you use.
Glass can be "silvered" in traditional silver, antique gold, pure gold and other metals. For example,
copper, which produces colors ranging from the color and tone of a shiny copper penny, to peach and pink.
You can easily silver glass with other metals to produce different colors. At one time, galena mirrors were popular
and the colors would range from cold gray, to sky blue and deep purple.
In my opinion, every crafter should know about the different ways glass can be silvered. If you are a professional
crafter looking for new ideas and techniques, glass silvering will give you endless possibilities.
By the way, the glass silvering process is surprisingly simple and the cost per mirror is very low, even when you
use in 24-ct gold.
However, you do not need to learn how to silver glass to use the techniques I will teach you. As a crafter, the
silvering process should interest you just the same.
I recently added section on interesting ways to use your die cutters, using embossing powders on glass, mirror
edge finishing, and an expanded chapter on glass gilding.
Gilding or applying gold leaf can indeed be a complicated process, taking perhaps decades to perfect. However,
I will show you several simple ways to apply gold and other types of metal leaf to glass surfaces with very few
problems.
Finally, I added a chapter about the glue chipping process. I describe and explain several easy to use glue-chipping
techniques.
In my opinion, you should learn how to glue chip glass. The small effort is certainly worth your time and effort.
Used for decades, glue chipping will allow you to alter the surface of glass and glass mirrors; the results you
can obtain are quite striking.
Start to finish, you will understand every step in my simplified mirror art process. A process that is so easy
to learn, you can easily deviate from the basic technique and still create a finished mirror that looks good.
You can modify and change the basic process to suit your tastes and to use the materials you already have on hand.
I am certain that you will discover different approaches and modifications I never considered.
