Copying any Art onto Glass

That right there is a Mark Ryden.  He's a Pop Surrealist artist from California whose work is often a little less serene than the Fur Girl  you see above.  But for today's purposes the Fur Girl is a perfect example of what I want to show you even though his Tree Show is more a favourite of mine.

See  how serious I can be when I'm talking about art.  Little Miss. Super Serious.  Because art is serious and meant to be revered and gasped at with a certain solemn nature.  No it isn't.  Art's fun. You don't need to be intimidated by art or artists.  All you need to do is like it or not like it.  And if you don't like something everyone else thinks you should then that's their problem.  Place your velvet Holly Hobby next to your Hang in There kitten poster, sit back and admire.

The problem a lot of us face with art is:

Art is expensive and sometimes we get bored with it and want to throw it out the window

Even numbered prints, which really are kind of useless, are expensive and what if you get bored with it? Then you have a $500 photocopy that you resent.

 This is not a $500 photocopy.  It's a $12 print from the 70's in a kind of bad old frame.

I got this frame at a local antique mall and I bought it for a few reasons.  It was big, gold, cheap AND it had glass.

And if you want to copy art that's what you need.

Copying Art onto Glass

Materials

A frame with glass.

Dry erase marker

Your imagination OR a piece of art you want to copy

Sketch Me App ($2.29)

Printer

As I said you can either decide you're going to freehand some art onto glass, or you can just copy something really good that you like.  The easiest thing to do is just go to Google Images and type in line drawing.  Picasso and Matisse are famous for simple line drawings that would be easy to copy so you can also Google those.

If there's a fairly simple piece of art you love (like my Fur Girl) you can Google that in Google images and convert it to a line drawing.  Just download the image, and pull it up in the Sketch Me App.  The app will convert any photo or painting to a line drawing.

Then simply print it out.  I wanted a fairly large image so I increased the size of it, divided it in half and printed it on two different pages.

That's what you see above.  Mark Ryden's Fur Girl that's been run through Sketch Me and then printed on 2 sheets of paper.

Next, tape the image face down onto the FRONT of your glass.  (You'll be drawing the image onto the back of the glass, not the front because the effect is better and there's no chance of someone walking by and accidentally rubbing your genuine copied artwork off)

Flip your frame over so it's right side down on a table.  You'll be able to see the photocopied artwork underneath.  Incidentally if you want a real representation of the art you're doing or if your artwork has words/printing you should reverse the image before you print it.   I didn't bother doing that because my art was fairly symmetrical.  Plus I forgot.

Also as you can see in the picture above, I've had to change the position of the  hanging wire.  If the wire was in the position it would normally be, you'd see it behind the glass when the frame is on the wall.  So I've moved the wire to the very top of the frame, shortening it and making sure it doesn't pull above the top of the frame which would make it visible on the wall.

The shot below shows the little nails that are holding the glass into the frame well.  They show a tiny bit when the picture is hung.  It doesn't bother me, but if you want to make this permanent and get rid of the nails just pull the nails out and carefully run a bead of silicone along the edge of the glass adhering it to the frame (on the back of the frame  not the front).

Now the EXTREMELY fun part.  Take your dry erase marker and just trace the line drawing onto the glass.  I swear to God you'll feel like you're the one who actually created this artwork.  You will be proud and you may call in neighbours, the letter carrier, people just driving by to see what you've done.

Every once in a while pull the paper back to make sure you've copied all the lines.  When you're done just pull the paper off completely.

Now you hang it.

The look works best on a white wall, but it'll work on any coloured wall.  Wallpaper might be a bit of a problem depending on how busy it is.

The best part is you can change it seasonally and if you get sick of it you don't have to throw it out the window risking injury.  To your bedding plants.  You just have to take the "painting" off of the wall, wipe it off with a paper towel and some glass cleaner and do something else.

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