Setting Sky

Setting Sky, acrylic and hot glue on canvas

This painting was created based on an assignment in one of my painting classes. “Get creative, make something abstract, use new materials.”

So I brought a hot glue gun into class. I also wanted to see what would happen if I tried putting it on a canvas. I wanted to see how it would react being mixed with paint (at this time I only used acrylic paint).

It worked way better than I thought it would. The paint and glue were able to mix a little, and since they dried in similar times it didn’t make anything look weird (I’m fairly certain that oil paint would not fare so well with hot glue).

I had fun with it- making streaks with the glue over something I already painted, painting over glue, and spreading the glue with a pallet knife to make it less of a line. I stretched small sections of the glue and make curly lines and mixed the glue with paint to create depth.

I had planned on the three canvases going together, but as I worked I didn’t really concentrate on the overall layout. Thankfully, there was a natural flow between the three paintings I’d created. And there even seemed to be a little moon in one section. I titled this trifecta Setting Sky because the sky fades away as you move through the canvases.

At that time I worked on another painting with hot glue and glitter, but since then I haven’t gotten back to it. I work mostly in oil paint now, so I don’t know if I’d even be able to make it work.

My teacher gave us the assignment to have fun with painting, and I definitely did that. Since then, painting has been a fun and calming process for me. What’s calming for you?