DAY 24 - Back to the Drawing Board, Window Art

 

 

Christmas 1975. 

My senior year in high school. My art teacher, Mr. Shaheen, approached me and a classmate, Tim, and asked if we wanted a job. He had a few business contacts in the area who were interested in having their shop windows painted up for the holidays. He would supply the paint and the brushes, all we had to do was say yes and do a good job. The pay was decent for that time in life and our level of experience. 

We agreed to give it a shot.

I remember that one of the stores was actually the Burger King up the street from the high school. Another, I believe, was a dry cleaner. And I think there was a third, but I might be wrong. 

It took a couple of nights to get it all done. We sketched the overall look for the job then each tackled a set of windows. Winter scenes, snow, Christmas trees, maybe a reindeer or two. The windows were big and it all took longer than we expected. Seems to me we each made $20 per job. 

The thing I remember about doing those windows was the finished look; not the look from the outside, but from the inside. The paint we used was a gel tempera, the kind you would have used in art class from the time you were about age 10. Beautiful, bright color. But when you apply tempera paint to the inside of a window, the color almost always looks flat and non-reflective from the outside. Kinda’ disappointing. 

The view from the inside, however, is quite different. The outside light from the sun or from car headlights or street lights, when it passes through the glass, gives the paint a translucent glow. 

The work looked better from the inside than the outside.

I am on the hunt to recreate something from that memory in my modern-day experience. I’ve messed with painting on glass and plastic using oils and acrylics but I’m just not a good painter. Matte painting (painting on glass in particular) is a profession all its own and those that practice the art produce amazing work. But I’m sketching and trying to work quickly. This is my latest effort: turning one of my wife’s flower photos into window art using window markers. The finished piece is actually drawn on clear plastic and photographed against a black background in my wife’s studio.