Plexipainting...sort of a tutorial...or should i say how i did it?

This was the first plexiglass painting i did...now remember I have been painting for hmm well more years than i care to remember and I do have an art degree...there are times when all i want to do is paint on anything that will hold still long enough for me to do it...I also signed up for an online class with Julie Pritchard and Chris Cozen called Mixed Media Melange where i learned this technique...HOWEVER I did not want to "copy" their class sample...so i took their techniques and I think i made them my own.

Detail of gold showing thru...

when the painting was done i was not happy with it...so i took a fine grade sanding block to it and sanded thru layers of paint to the bare plexiglass and then covered the open areas with gold iridescent paints...Now I LOVE it!!

Spring Garden

This is my favorite painting...spring garden...Believe it or not it was inspired by a piece of spring flowered fabric!! I painted alot of interference and iridescent colors on this BEFORE I started adding the opaque colors...also lots of layering of transparent colors followed by a final opaque layer...

So now i will walk you thru the process of creating ONE plexiglass painting...

I Remember You

So how did i do this plexipainting...its reverse painted which makes it quite an interesting and thought provoking process....



The pallette is Golden Fluid Acrylics Phthalo Blue, Hansa Yellow Light, and Quin Magenta with Iridescent Gold and Silver and Interference Blue.


I knew I planned on using as piece of cheese cloth so i painted it brown and put it outside to dry.



Summer before last Margaret Wesley and I took pics of some cemetary angels...this one started out with the typical blue sky grey tombstone color. I uploaded it to picnik.com and changed the colors and used an effect on it called "HDR-ish" to get this brown gritty textured angel.

I printed this picture out to make a paper transfer...cut it out and glued it down on the REVERSE Side of the plexi.

The bird is from a blog with copyright free downloadable illos called Thesumofallcrafts
There are ALOT of links to other websites with CR free downloadable illos on it...A great site!


The first thing i did was two paper transfers on the back. You glue them down with gel medium gloss, let them dry, spray them with water and DELICATELY roll the paper off till you can see the picture from the back...


Here are the paper transfers painted...I drizzled watered blue down it with some Quin Azo Gold that I do love for its rusty look...and painted the bird to look like a brown thrasher...well I am calling it a brown thrasher:>

At this point i stenciled some interference blue on the plexi...hard to see, hard to photograph but gives a lovely glow to it!


I covered the transfers with silver to give them a glow...and painted rings of Quin Azo Yellow around them...



I glued down the cheese cloth and let it dry. Then I started daubing it with gold silver and blue
I used a grid to do a "stencil" with some Titan Buff paint...


So here it is from the front...NOW I had problems. I painted the background in this TWICE and scraped it all off...outside the area you see painted here...

Finally i streaked the bare plexi with interference blue and overpainted it with streaks of phthalo blue and quin azo gold...kind of like old paint...I had first tried drizzling paint like i did on the tombstone...NOT a good look but I may try that again...love drizzly runny paint!



Then i sanded some of the blue off down to the plexi with my sanding block and added some more Quin azo gold with some iridescent gold...


and voila it was done...not only was it done...it let me take a pic of it glowing WITHOUT lights reflecting in it...the others would NOT let me do that...hate to think of how many pics i took of them with little success...windows reflecting lights reflecting...sigh

Now it needs a coat of gel medium or glaze to protect the paint and a frame....