Painted Halloween Goblets – and fingers, and hands, and

We’re having a heat wave here in Northern California. Temps reaching triple digits for the next 3-4 days.

Ugh.

I don’t do well in the heat. At.All.

I was sitting in my comfortable, air-conditioned studio when I happened to glance at my calendar. I do that every so often . . . usually by mistake. There in the square marked the 13th is clearly marked “Group Halloween Post”. For the 13th. As in, day after tomorrow.

Ruh roh.

I looked over at the table with the piles of Halloween stuff, and the boxes stacked next to the table with more Halloween stuff. Huh. Then I looked at my list for Halloween Projects. Still . . . huh. As in, nothing got my creative juices going.

I went outside to get some fresh air . . . briefly . . . and when I came back in the two black goblets from the dollar store stood out from the rest of the skulls and bats and skeletons.

Maybe I could grab a paint pen and doodle something on them. Yeah, that’d work.

But first I decided to google some images for more inspiration. Pfftt. Big mistake.

Well, not really a ‘mistake’, more of a time-drain.

I got ideas for the black goblets . . . and ideas for another goblet, and another . . . and . . .

I needed to grab the spray paint and get outside quick, before it got so hot the paint thingy would clog. So I grabbed the black paint and chalkboard paint and two goblets and some dollar store plastic bugs and found some shade.

Then the black spray paint thingy popped off and I had black drips running down my fingers, onto my arm.

Great.

I brought everything in after it had dried – which didn’t take long – and pulled the black goblets to my worktable – the black goblets that didn’t need to be spray painted. I picked thru my paint pens, threw away the ones that had dried up, and picked one black pen and one white pen.

Midway through shaking the black pen and pushing the tip up and down to get the paint flowing, black paint started pouring out of one of the seams . . . black drips running down my fingers, onto my arm . . . and onto my pants . . . and my worktable . . . and the floor.

I hadn’t even painted one goblet and I’d already cleaned up as much as when I paint an entire room.

Not to mention that I spent all that time spray painting goblets that I didn’t even need today.

Annnyway . . . I grabbed another black paint pen and started in.

These goblets are actually easy to paint – with or without drips.

All you need are a couple of goblets, some rubbing alcohol, and white and black paint pens. 

Or possibly two black pens.

Before painting glass, clean it with rubbing alcohol to remove any oil from your hands.

I painted two simple styles – a spiderweb and bats.

Painted Spiderweb Goblet

If you’ll be using the goblets for drinking, as opposed to, say, just setting them around for decoration . . . like some people I know . . . it helps to tape the rim off so you don’t paint too close to where someone’s lips would be.

I painted the spiderweb in white, but black or silver would work too.

Spiderwebs are super easy to draw or paint. Really! I did a spiderweb tutorial with a Sharpie a few years ago, but I’ll give instructions here too.
To start the web, draw a tiny circle and then extend a line out from it.

Continue painting lines extending from the circle. They don’t need to be all the same size or evenly spaced. They’ll look better if they’re random.

Next, connect the lines with little swoops, moving around the entire circle. Then repeat with the swoops, moving outward along the lines. Again, randomly space the lines. 

Make your web as small or large as you’d like.
Three webs fit easily on this goblet but, of course, it depends on the size of the goblet bowl.

Now you need a spider for your web, right? So grab the dreaded black paint pen.
(p.s. I used Goof-Off to remove the paint from my fingers and arm. Mineral spirits or paint thinner would also work.)

There are umpteen ways to paint spiders but I like a big simple one – a head, body, and 8 legs.
Done.

Painted Batty Wine Goblet

Clean the goblet with rubbing alcohol and let dry. Tape off the rim for drinking space.
Again, there are a bunch of styles of bats but they’re super easy to paint too. Or you can grab a bat pattern here.

Draw a center dot (the head) then two dots on either side a little higher than the head. Also add a dot below the head.

The dot below the head is for the body. You can paint the bat’s body if you want, but it’s really not necessary.

Connect the side dots to the head with a little swoop.

Connect the side dots to the bottom dot making the bat wings. You can do as many curves as you want but 2-3 usually works well.

Then fill in and allow to dry. If you try to paint over wet paint pen, it just lifts the paint off, so wait for it to dry to go over any blank spaces.

Simple, right?

Another easy bat to paint is to make two little angles for the top of the wings.

Add the curves and a dot for the head, then fill it all in.

I just painted a bunch of bats and called it a day. A moon would be pretty though, dontcha think?

Super easy painted Halloween goblets!

Don’t let my little black-paint-mishap deter you – you could do an entire set in no time at all.

And still have time to make the Spooky Eyeballs!

Colleen

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