These glue gun art flowers are SO PRETTY! Use our free templates, hot glue, and a little bit of paint to create this fun and easy art project.
Glue guns are handy for all kinds of crafts, but have you ever used one to paint?! It’s such a cool craft! Trace a flower outline with your glue gun and then add paint between the raised lines — it’s so fun!
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How to Make Glue Gun Art Flowers
Equipment:
Check Out The Video Tutorial:
Instructions:
Step 1: Find what you need
- Gather your supplies and materials.
Step 2: Trace the template with pencil and glue
- Print one of our free flower templates or coloring pages!There's more details on which ones we used below this tutorial.
- Hold the template on a window or another light source and then place a piece of watercolour paper on top.Trace the lines of the template onto the watercolour paper. Press lightly with your pencil to get faint lines. If your lines are darker, you can lightly erase them to make them lighter.
- Use a hot glue gun to trace over the lines of the template with hot glue.For the smoothest lines, keep the glue gun going for as long as possible, moving it constantly to follow the shape of the picture.Allow the glue to dry.
Step 3: Paint the flower's leaves and stem
- Add water and liquid watercolour paint into small bowls or a deep paint palette.Add 3 parts water to 1 part paint. You only need a small amount of paint to do many paintings.
- Begin adding paint to the first section of your paper. The raised glue lines make it easy to keep paint contained to one area.Use the tip of the paintbrush to get the paint right up against the glue lines.
- Add fresh paint to the paper where you want the paint to dry darker, and then add drops of water to other areas to spread the paint and create a lighter shade.
- You can also mix different colours of paint together. Here we added a bit of yellow on top of the green to make a lighter, warmer shade of green.
Step 4: Paint the flower petals
- Choose the main colour for your flower and what type of look you want for it.Here we did darker blue on the outside of the petals with large water droplets on the inside of the flower to lighten the colour.
- Finally, fill in the center of the flower and allow it to dry.This should happen quite quickly on watercolour paper, but make sure you don't tilt your paper until all the water is absorbed into the paper.
- Your glue gun art flower is complete!
Helpful Tips:
- You can also pick up your paper and move the paper instead of the glue gun. It can make it easier to follow the exact lines of the template.
- Blend different colours of watercolour paint together for a pretty look.
- If your paint splashes a bit on the raised hot glue lines you can wet a q-tip and carefully wipe the paint away.
Free printable templates for glue gun art flowers:
Use the links below to find the flower templates we used for this glue gun art. There’s many different styles of flowers in a variety of sizes. The templates are free to download and print.
>>> Flower Outline <<<
We used the small sizes of flower outline #1, flower template #3, and flower outlines #5 for some of our glue gun art flowers.
>>> Flower Coloring Pages <<<
We used flower colouring pages #7 and #10 to make our hot glue paintings.
What type of paint is best for making glue gun art flowers?
We used liquid watercolour paint for our glue gun art, but you can also use pan watercolours or even acrylic paint. And if you’re not comfortable using paint (or want to minimize the mess) you can also use markers, colored pencils, or crayons!
What type of glue gun is used for glue gun art?
We definitely recommend using a regular, high heat glue gun for this craft. We usually like to use a low temperature glue gun, but the hotter the glue, the more easily it comes out of the gun.
The hot glue coming out more quickly makes it easier to follow the lines of the template. Younger kids can use a low temperature glue gun, if needed, but it will take longer and the lines won’t be quite as clean looking.
Do I have to use watercolor paper for hot glue painting?
If you’re using watercolour paint, we definitely recommended using watercolour paper. It’s thick and made for absorbing the liquid paint.
But if you’re going to paint with acrylic paint (or colour with marker), then you can definitely use a different type of paper. A thicker paper like cardstock is still recommended, since it’ll hold up to the glue and colour without warping.
Do I have to use a template to make glue gun art?
No, you can definitely draw your own picture and cover the lines with the hot glue. Or you can even try freehand drawing with the glue gun! Make sure your lines aren’t too close, or the glue will run together.
Glue gun art is such a fun resist technique for watercolour paint. It’s SO EASY to create a beautiful piece of art, no painting experience necessary, plus it’s really cool to “paint” with a glue gun.
Here’s even more easy art ideas:
“Watercolor” Printing Using Markers
Our book Low-Mess Crafts for Kids is loaded with 72 fun and simple craft ideas for kids! The projects are fun, easy and most importantly low-mess, so the clean up is simple!
Where to buy:
You can purchase Low-Mess Crafts for Kids from Amazon, or wherever books are sold:
Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Books-A-Million | Indiebound | Amazon Canada
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