Mistakes can be good!

I’ve just painted a horse on a coaster and only when I’d finished him did I realise that I’d painted on the wrong side of the coaster! The fused glass coasters I use, hand-made in the UK by Bea Schirmer, have a shiny side and a slightly rough side. I usually paint on the rough side which is the back of the coaster, so the top is smooth to put drinks on. This means the painting, being on the underside, is reversed when the coaster is placed on a table but looks equally as good, as long as I’ve not overlapped the paint too much!

So having painted the horse on the smooth side I had a dilemma, do I wash the paint off and start again or leave him, as glass paint is pretty tough once baked. The decision needed to be made quickly, as even before baking, glass paint can be hard work to remove when dry! I rather liked the horse and as this is a present from me I decided to leave it. However as I’m now adding background to my animal paintings it occurred to me I could paint this on the underside, it was worth a go. This is the back, first stage unfinished

Normally I have to carefully paint around the animal to ensure I don’t overlap the paint as explained above. Painting the background on the other side to the horse meant I didn’t have to worry about this. Bonus and to top it all painting on both sides gives a good effect, so in the end my mistake worked out well.

It is difficult to see the full effect from a photograph but here he is from the front of the coaster, the painting isn’t finished but I was determined to blog this week!

Horse coaster

If you’d like your own personalised coaster set or one similar to this you can of course just message me or take a look in my Folksy shop for coasters available to buy now.

For those equine and animal lovers that like funny animal photos I’ve posted a link to a blog post I found. Tried to reblog it but it just created a new post with the link, so you’ll have to click through! Have a great weekend everyone.