Hot glue and getting messy.

While still in playing mode (my last blog post) I decided to dust off my hot glue gun. I had bought some glittery coloured glue sticks in Lidl and thought it would be a fun distraction for my 6-year-old to see what happened when they melted. Don’t worry she was under strict supervision and I mainly used the glue gun as she watched in awe at the molten glue. We made dots and squiggles, drew hearts and stars and when it was time for bed I promised I would pack it away and only do it again when she could watch. The minute she was asleep I heated it back up. I simply hadn’t had enough of exploring some of its possibilities. I had seen the idea of creating stencils out of hot glue but I wanted to draw a picture. It proved harder than I thought but this is what I came up with-

I used clear hot glue first and drew the basic branch and leaf shape, painted the whole thing with acrylic paint and waited patiently for it to dry. I sat back and realised that it all looked a little ‘flat’ despite the dimension of all that glue. Out came my gilding glue (it dries tacky) and with a paintbrush I carefully painted it on. Once dry I covered in silver gilding flakes and watched as the whole picture came alive. I hastily dug out some old Kanban bird stamps and stamped. I left it that way for weeks until I decided that I had to do more to it. I had no idea what but it just looked so unfinished.

Fast forward a few weeks, whilst thinking over a problem my daughter had at school, I attacked my pretty picture with my new, beautiful Tim Holtz tissue wrap and more paint and stamps.

I really wish I had put the tissue wrap down all over the page before drawing the glue branches. It would or looked so much nicer with the paper showing through the paint in random patches rather than it looking so structured. Hey ho, I plodded on. It got dark. Gothic almost. No idea where it came from but I think my mood must have crept into it. I tried to lighten it. My pretty picture is now, well, um, I’m not sure…….

I titled it ‘Birdsong’. I like the different textures on it – the shiny raised branches, the glossy bird and writing and the lock has been finished with crackle paint so has a really cool cracked finish. As to my feelings on the picture as a whole I’m undecided……..