K.A.P. on the Road: Copper Island Pub
Spring is officially in the air, and alongside that, we are excited to welcome you to our newest blog segment: “Kamloops Art Party (K.A.P.) on the Road,” where we will be highlighting our studio artists as they take their art on the road for various lessons, events and parties hosted in Kamloops and other local surrounding communities.
Glassware Painting @ Copper Island Pub, Sorrento, B.C.
Earlier this week, I had the joy of hosting a Paint Party at the Copper Island Pub, which is located in the beautiful Shuswap community of Sorrento.
(Copper Island Pub in Sorrento, BC)
Sorrento is a small lakeside vacation community, located on the south shore of Shuswap Lake. It is nestled directly along the Trans-Canada highway, and is easily accessible by car in just under an hour’s drive from Kamloops.
Regardless of whatever time of year you choose to
visit Sorrento, it is worth making a pit stop at the Copper Island Pub! With many delicious food options, stellar drink specials, amazing event schedule, and absolute JAW-dropping views overlooking Shuswap Lake, this place is an absolute MUST-stop for anyone looking to travel to the Shuswap.
(Beautiful view of Shuswap Lake from the Copper Island Pub)
Once our event registrants settled in to their seats and everybody ordered their FREE drink (included within their ticket price!), we were ready to begin our Paint Party—where we would soon be learning how to paint “Sunset” Wine Glasses! Each equipped with two stemless wine glasses to paint, along with all of the required brushes, paints, rags, and aprons… we were now ready to get messy and have some fun!
(Wine glass painting @ Copper Island Pub!)
Painting on Glassware—Tips & Techniques
It is always best to paint on clean surfaces, so any glass that you are preparing to paint should be clean, dry, and free of any dust, dirt, or fingerprints. Enamel paints are the best paints to use on glassware. They provide a durable, hard, opaque finish once dried. In order to fully cure, the painted glassware can either be baked in a low temperature oven, or it can be air-dried for a minimum of one to two weeks. Once the paint is fully dried, the painted glassware can then be hand washed countless times without any of the paint leaving the surface. As well, enamel paints are food safe, so your freshly painted glassware will be safe to use once fully dried.
Enamel paints dry relatively quickly once you’re working with them, which make them the perfect type of paints to use for layering. Upon your first application of paint, you may notice brush strokes or an undesirable “streakiness” left on your glass. This can easily be fixed by waiting a few minutes for your paint to dry in between coats, and re-applying a second (or third) coat as required.
(Glassware with two coats of enamel paint application.)
It is always a good idea to wait until your paint dries in between coats before layering designs. Once the background color on these wine glasses fully dried, our group went ahead and began painting in the sun, clouds, mountains and water reflection details over top of the background paint that we had just laid down. It is recommended to wait until the background paint is relatively dry to the touch in order to prevent unwanted colors from bleeding and blending into other areas of the surface.
(Adding in the details!)
Once we got our landscape laid out, we were now ready to move on to the final step—adding in the palm tree silhouettes! Silhouettes are always a ton of fun to create, and because of their dark, solid hues, they can also be very forgiving of any mistakes! For this step, we used black enamel paint and a small angle brush to achieve the look of the tree’s trunk and palm fronds; however, other various brushes (fan, round, etc.) can be used to achieve this look as well.
(The final product!) Above all else, the most important thing is just to have some fun getting creative with it, and the rest will fall into place from there! Give these tips and techniques a try and tag us in your amazing creations on Instagram/Facebook: @kamloopsartparty! We can’t wait to see what you create!