The Framers Forum

"Can you replace the broken glass in this tea tray?"

"Sure, no problem" says me.

When I get it back to my workshop I discover the glass is not just clear glass but reverse painted!

Anyway, some cans of Rust-Oleum spray paint, 3mm glass, frog tape, green baize and plenty of head scratching and some quick learning... I got it done

Gosh, haven't had one of those for a few decades, they look good if using a dark colour and gold, such as Black, very dark Green , dark Red etc
I used to draw out the design on a mountcard, lay the glass on top, mask up to do the gold around the window as a pin stripe, then take the outer masking off, then spray the main colour , Black etc

Thanks for sharing David

That’s exactly how I did this one

I've never been asked to do one, but it would be interesting to try one someday.

I guy once brought me a nice reverse painting on glass. Very old. He wanted it reframing. In the four feet from his car to my door
he managed to crack it across the middle.

It depicted a horse with a bit of straw round it's hooves. No background. The crack went from one side to the other right though the horse.
I thought a bit and then had an idea.

I put a piece of mountboard behind, made a pencil mark where the crack was and got my paints out. The crack became the top
of a hill and I loosely filled in a background. With another piece of glass on top the crack did not show as it was perfectly in
register with the hillside. The background colours were very muted and where the crack went though the horse it didn't
show when held together.

A sneaky trick, but it ended up better than it had any right to be.