#171...glass etching cream

Recently, I framed these three little pieces of art, and then decided to embellish them by glass etching the front of the glass with clouds on the bird, bubbles on the fish, and waves on the boat. The boat, bird and fish are cut out from splatter paint on tar paper, that I bought on this trip to Fairhope, Alabama and were painted by artist Tres Taylor in collaboration with local children to benefit the recent earthquake devastation in Haiti.

To frame the art, I mounted the pieces on mat board and put them inside some thrift store frames that I spray painted white. I thought they looked a little plain, so I decided to try glass etching shapes onto the framed pieces. I put this vinyl contact paper onto the surface of the glass, applying slowly and smoothing as I went, to make sure no air bubbles were trapped.

Next, using a sharpie, I drew my design onto the vinyl paper, and carefully cut out the shape with an Exato-knife and peeled off the design, revealing the glass. I used Armour Etch cream and a small paint brush to paint the cream thickly over the areas of exposed glass.

The bottle says to wait five minutes and wash it off with water. Then you simply peel off the remaining vinyl paper and voila', your glass it etched. It was simple, and worked as easily as the instructions promised.

It is a little hard to see the etching in the photos, since it is very subtle on the glass, but I really like the effect it added to the artwork. These pieces are going to hang in a kid's bathroom in a grouping. I found this video on YouTube that is a good demonstration of how to etch glass using the above products.