Friday, December 23, 2011

Me, artistic?

I feel like some back story is necessary for this post. To help illustrate the point, no pun intended, that I, Rose Hartschuh, am not artistic, I have included pictures of some past attempts at "art." More frightening than the rabbit below is the fact that I was able to pull these projects out of a tote in my basement to snap some photos of them a few minutes ago.


  Paper mache rabbit? Circa fifth grade. It was supposed to be a hand puppet I think. Mrs. Dean, elementary art teacher, retired shortly after this. Coincidence? You be the judge.

In eighth grade, we had to select a cartoon, cut it into square, and continue the picture. While the drawing might make the cut, obviously my coloring skills leave little to be desired.

These are just two projects on a long list of mediocracy. I will admit, however, that when it comes to drawing and sketching, I don't do half bad. Three years at Ohio State gave me many opportunities to sketch my professors during lectures. I have a great sketch of Scary Larry (my welding instructor), but I wasn't able to find it. Anywho, art is not necessary my strong suit.

Nonetheless, I was looking for a personalized and meaningful Christmas gift for my sister-in-law. Upon purchasing plain wine glasses, I decided to add some flair to them. I read some online tutorials and was finally ready to take a shot at painting them. The supplies were few: glasses, oven, acrylic enamel (special acrylic paint made for glasswork), and brushes. 

I went with a simple dot pattern, mostly because I didn't think I could screw it up too bad. I selected four colors that went fairly well together, and alternated the color patterns. Here's the result:


We opened presents last week, and the recipient didn't throw them on the floor to shatter them, so I must have done ok. Perhaps one day I'll paint a picture.

Or make a paper mache rabbit.

2 comments:

  1. Those are really cute!! How do they hold up to washing?

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  2. Thanks! The key is to use acrylic enamel paint, which is specially designed for glass. After the paint sets for 24 hours, you bake the glasses at 250 degrees for one hour (including the pre-heat time.) The glasses are then considered dishwasher safe on the top rack. This was my first time doing a project like this, so I can't tell you from personal experience how well they hold up to washing, but I hope they do!

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