Splashing Character on Windows

Splashing Character on Windows

Author	Teresa Farrington
Genre	Article, How-To
Published	EF Issue 2019.1
Publication date	Winter 2019
Media type	Print, Digital
Pages	22-24
Website	caricature.org

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Article Transcript

Introduction

Along with drawing caricatures, window painting is one of my passions. Over the past 30+ years, I have been perfecting my skills splashing color and adding character to business windows around the country. Along the way, I have picked up other skill sets and incorporated them into my window designs. As a caricature artist, I enjoy capturing the personalities of my subjects, so I figured why not use this ability on my window painting. Over the years I have managed to create my own unique style as every artist strives to do. Many artists have shown an interest in learning my window painting technique. Well, I am here today to share the basics of how it’s done, including how I add my own unique personality to my characters to make people smile when they see my finished window paintings.

Supplies

I was always taught in order to do a job properly you must first have the correct tools and knowledge of how to use them. Here is a list of what I use to paint windows.

• A couple of tarps. One to lay on the ground under window and one to lay under your paints. It keeps things

clean. This can be a messy job. I have failed to do this in the past and you can see the results on the tailgate of my truck.

• 3” sponge rollers (Larger for huge showroom windows)

• 1” & 2” sponge brushes (I cut them down when I need thinner line.)

• Liner paint brushes (Used mainly for detail on faces)

• Several small paint pans

• 4” scraper blade with handle (used to scrape large areas of paint off of windows) I call this my eraser.

• Small hand-held 2” scraper blade (Used for cleaning up lines and drips)

• 1” Masking tape (for taping off straight lines for lettering and clean edges)

• Scissors (used mostly to cut sponge brushes smaller)

• Jug of fresh water (for thinning paint)

• Bucket of water (to clean brushes)

• Paper towels

• Box of small sandwich baggies (used to place wet rollers with different colors in for reuse)

• China marker (used if you want to pre-sketch design on window)

• Receipt book (when collecting money)

• Paint: I use three kinds of paint. I prefer Sherwin-Williams paint. If you ask your paint supplier, sometimes you can get discounted paint that has been mixed wrong or discontinued. Asking the right person could save you money.

1. Ceiling Bright White
2. Acrylic flat house paint
3. Day Glo fluorescent paint

• Plastic tubs work great to store gallon containers of paint as you travel to each job.

• I change out color selections for seasons, but always carry basic colors such as white, black, blue, red, yellow, and green.

• My Day Glo colors I keep in stock are Rocket Red, Saturn Yellow, Bright Green, and Hot Pink.

• It is best to get a premixed black paint for the darkest pigment. Black that is mixed at paint stores is never dark enough. It usually has more of a gray tone on windows. Sherwin-Williams carries gallons of premixed black that work well for me.

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