Q: Color fill on mirror glass?

[Chuck Stone]

I did a mirror piece 18x12 and used rattle can black to fill it in.
There's a lot of very fine detail (it's a woodcut type image) and
the paint didn't seem to flow very well into the engraved areas.
This is pretty old mirror, too .. so I don't want to waste it

I took off the paint with lacquer thinner and the image is still there,
so I checked registration and I'm running the file again to do a cleanup
pass.

Question... what do you use for color fill on mirror if the spray paint isn't
working? Should I try oil paint? Brush on lacquer? Burnish it in? Some
other product?

THe way it came out, it would probably light up from behind just fine, but
the paint didn't seem to give much color when viewed from the front. I can
see the table through the areas that have the mirror removed. (before painting)

[Joe Hillmann]

What color are you trying to paint it? I usually use dark colors. You say you can see the table through the engraving, that doesn't sound right or it sounds like you didn't engrave deeply enough. When I do mirrors to be color filled I turn the power way up to compeatly remove the backing and etch into the glass so the glass looks white, once you spray it with color the white disappears and the color shows up nice.

And as far as paint I use what ever spray can I happen to have around which is usually some type of rustolium.

[Chuck Stone]

THanks Joe..
I was using black Rustoleum. When i say I could see the table through the glass,
I went JUST far enough to take off the mirror and not etch the glass itself.
I didn't want to etch.. figured that it would look sharp if the color wasn't going
through 'frosted' glass