painting glass with kids

[Cristi]

anyone have any suggestions for a non-toxic, or relatively so glass paint
for a gaggle of four year olds? I'm prepared to fire the resulting tiles.
Thanks-
Cristi

[rosanna gusler]

i think that four would be much too young to use glass paints. even the food safe ones have all sorts of reactive chemicals in them berofe being fired. i say find a different project. scary. rosanna

[Bev Brandt]

How about instead of the usual paint or enamels, you have them glue on stringers and frit? You could also pre-cut some shapes for them. For 4 year olds, I'd grind off sharp edges before I gave it to them. You could pre-fire some "globs" for them to attach to the tiles, too.

Or you could go the Pebeo route and just oven-fire the end result.

- Bev - whose 8 year old is all psyched to "melt some stuff" in the new kiln

[Cristi]

I was thinking that cut outs and stringers were the next step. But I needed to ask about paints because the kids had been painting water based bio-safety paints on ceramic tile with amazing but temporary
results.
Thanks to all-
Cristi

[Dave Pascoe]

I`ve always found that children burn off far too quickly for use with fused glass.

Sorry, I couldn`t resist........

[Bert Weiss]

You would have to insure that they don't put their fingers in their mouths. This is not really possible with 4 year olds.

[Rebecca M.]

Cristi, Mayco makes a product called Images. It's supposed to be non-toxic and all that. It fires somewhere around 1000-1100. I did some slumped bottles with it, and it turns out OK. I have a trivet that I painted when I was about 4 with ceramic glazes. It's one of the few possessions I still have from 37 years ago. That's a looooong time, and I still love it. I say go for it!
There is another company that makes a leadfree/cadmium free paint for glass. The name is completely escaping me at the moment. I'll get back with that one.

[Rebecca M.]

Here it is. Fires much higher than Images, and I haven't used it but have seen good results.

http://www.crestmolds.com/glaslf.html

Good luck with the kiddies!

[Geri Comstock]

Satellite/Unique makes lead free paints for fusing. I don't know how safe they are for use with kids, but you might want to check into them.

Geri

[Rebecca M.]

I was just informed that Mayco is no longer making the Images line of glass paints. Sorry.

[rosanna gusler]

all of those paints are lead free or food safe AS FIRED. they are toxic in their raw state. that said....one of my favorite toys growing up was a bottle of mercury i found in the basement. probably about half a cup full in all. we played with it untill it was gone. that house should probably be a superfund site now lol. rosanna

[dan001]

My kids are now 15 and 13 yeard old respectively.They both cut, assemble, fuse and paint on glass with the proper precaution.

As a matter of fact my wife and I started both kids at arounf 4 years old as well doing tiles for our bathroom that they could see their work on a daily basis.

HOWEVER, we both flelt that it was much easier, safer and faster(because the limited time of concentration) for them to asemble Mosaic tile.We started them on mosaic( small squares) that we purchased, they graduated by making their own piece( by craking glass) and at around 8 they were ready to fuse some tile with Fritz.

Not only we stimulated their desired to pursue their art but it also allowed us to leave the kids without supervison in the studio while we were either cooking lunch or whatever.


I guess you can always paint if you really really want to, but make sure that you keep those kids safe.


Dan