Materials:

• Premo! Sculpey in black 001 or color of choice if making a framed cling painting
• Translucent Liquid Sculpey (TLS)
• Sculpey Diluent for thinning TLS
• Tempered glass or ordinary glass with cut edges ground or taped for safety
• Artist's Oil Colors (any brand is fine. The more expensive brands have fewer fillers than the student grade. Because so little actual paint is used to tint the TLS, it probably doesn't matter at all which brand you use. Note: DO NOT thin oil paints with solvents or paint thinner.)
• Sculpey Super Slicer or cardstock for spreading TLS
• Small artist's brush, synthetic bristles
• Alcohol for cleanup
• Toothpicks for applying paint
• Pen and ink drawing or copy of Dover Books that is placed UNDER glass
• Disposable small paint cups or palette

Directions:

Tint several puddles or paint cups full of TLS with small amounts of Artist's Oil Colors. Mix well with toothpick so that no streaks or spots are apparent.

Review "Getting Started with TLS Bakable Transfer and Color Medium" in the Projects section of our web site.

Float a thin coat of TLS thinned with Diluent over the glass, using the Super Slicer or piece of card stock.

You should be able to see the outlines of your sketch through the layer of TLS.

Begin dropping your lightest colors into the layer of TLS using a toothpick. Think about which direction the light might be coming from, and where it might fall on each element of your painting.

Don't worry about "going outside the lines," but keep the drips very small. Drag the color into shapes to approximate your outline. The color will spread on it's own, and level naturally.

Next, drop in the following colors. Swirl the colors together with a little "squiggly" motion of the toothpick. You can leave the colors unblended as you like.

Where you do want the colors to blend well, you can create smooth color transitions by "scribbling" back and forth between two colors to mix them.

If you make a mistake or change your mind about the color you want in a certain spot, you can scoop out the color that you want to replace with a flat, synthetic bristle artist's brush. This is a size 2 nylon filbert brush, but a flat will work as well.

Add touches of a slightly opaque white for highlights. If you like how your cling looks, cure it in the oven at 300 degrees F for 15 minutes.

The cured cling is very transparent. With thin applications such as this one, it is also very fragile. If you remove it and later decide to add a layer, chances are that the cling will bubble and split at it's thinnest points. It is better to leave it on the glass, undisturbed.

Apply a second layer of the colors you want to strengthen. Using several thin applications will result in a much clearer cling than one created in one thick layer. You can exploit this quality to simulate the different opacities of stained glass.

Cure again, 300 degrees F for 15 minutes, then coat with another thin layer of TLS that has been thinned with Sculpey Diluent. Use approximately 2 parts TLS to 1-2 parts of Diluent. Allow this thinned layer to settle out before curing for another 15 minutes at 300 degrees F.

Wait until the cling is cool and either peel it carefully from the glass and trim with scissors to stick onto window as is, or put a decorative Premo frame around it.

Apply a last layer of thinned TLS to the cling, being careful to float a little extra into the crevice where the cling meets the frame. Allow it to settle out and then cure again.
Using a permanent finepoint marker, such as a Sharpie, draw in details or an outline wherever you want to accent the design

The frame was accented with faux patinas. If you use opaque colors such as white, (titanium, flake or zinc), lamp black, ivory black, cobalt blue or zinc yellow, the TLS will not be quite as clear, and these areas will be more shadowy in the cling or suncatcher.

NOTE: You can be as free form or as detailed as you like in your painting. You can omit the detailing with the permanent ink pen after curing, or you can add stippling with the pen to create darker shadow areas. Have fun with this and try anything. Here is another example below!