Fun with glass paint!

A friend bought a mosaic mirror at a big box store on clearance.  They ended up giving her an extra 25% off because a couple of pieces on the edges had been knocked off.  From a distance, it’s a very pretty mirror, lol!  But looking at it closely, it has suffered A LOT of damage, most of it I can’t fix for her.  It’s constructed of rectangles of clear glass that have been painted on the back, and assembled with no grout.  But even where pieces are still firmly attached, you can see that something has cracked and/or chipped the surface.
But I told her I’d fix the missing pieces with something that was a close approximation, and touch up as best I could.  It’s going on a wall behind a desk, and the remaining damage shouldn’t be noticeable.


<—(view of missing edge tile)
Interestingly enough, I had saved some old clear sheet glass and cut it into rectangles with the intention of buying some glass paint for the backs of them. I think that would be a great way to add interest to boring backgrounds in future mosaics.  I hadn’t actually done anything about it though, so I headed off to the art supply store for glass paint.

So…..apparently painting on glass is not a terribly popular pastime?  I found this –>
but in rather limited color selection.  I wanted a bluish green and a copper color.  Strike.  I found turquoise (a greenish blue, but only just) and gold.
I ended up buying both of those and a pearly white, intending to paint a very thin layer of a mix of gold and white, then put a second layer of the turquoise all over the back of that.  My theory was that even if I didn’t think they would blend in well enough, I had more glass, and could buy some green paint and try mixing it with the turquoise.

The piece on the top is an original, and the lower piece is one I painted.  After laying the new pieces in place, I think they will blend well enough.  I wish the gold were darker, but there was no option for that.  There was no copper color, so that’s that.
I’ll post a picture when I get it finished.

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