I have previously posted about how I make homemade sea glass, and I have been pleased with the results. However, I have been disappointed by the limited number of colors of wine bottle, the main thing I use to make the sea glass. I tried using clear wine bottles that had been painted by the bottle manufacturer, but all the paint came off during the tumbling. I also have been pleased with my results of making sea pottery, but the printed details comes off, and of course, I am limited by the colors of the pottery I have.
I then decided to see if my homemade sea glass had enough surface texture that it could be painted. Regular glass can be painted, but without a proper primer, the paint simply will not stick. I discovered that my homemade sea glass can be painted with regular acrylic paint quite easily, and the paint sticks nicely. I must note that I have not tried to remove the paint, but at least with just regular handling, the paint stays on the glass nicely.
Also, one issue I have had with colored sea glass is that when I stitch it onto fabric, which is what I generally use it for, the glass sometimes looks so dark, you can’t appreciate its color. Thus, I decided to paint the back with a lighter color to see if that might make the glass look lighter and allow the glass to look more like its true color. In the below photo, the top row is unpainted colored glass of teal, green, and blue wine bottles, respectively. The second row has that some colored glass that I painted with silver paint on the backside. The third row also has the same glass, but I painted the back white. The difference is subtle, but I think the painted glass looks lighter.
Next, I painted clear sea glass with various colors of acrylic paint. In some cases, I painted a solid coat, but in some cases, I used more water to get a more translucent result. Both techniques provided a nice effect. The below photos shows clear homemade sea glass (middle far left) from the unpainted side. The photo below that is the same glass shown from the painted side.
Finally, I used this same technique on the sea pottery I made from the pottery that had been printed with roses, but the roses came off in the tumbler. The paint was quickly absorbed into the sides from the interior of the pottery that never had glaze. Whereas on the sides that had been glazed, the paint stuck unevenly given it a more water color look.
See more on my video.