One of the materials I’ve found useful and interesting when working on my abstract mixed media pieces is crushed glass. It’s not a typical art material, so it can be difficult to get a hold of at a good price.  I often find it in stores that sell home décor items—usually in the aisle with the vase fillers and candles. Sometimes I even get lucky and find some at the dollar store!

Generally I will use crushed glass when I’m trying to add a thick, sharp, chunky texture to a piece, though it’s also useful for it transparency in certain situations. In my “Below the Surface” series, I used crushed glass in a number of pieces, since the inspiration for the series was rocks, minerals and geological features. The glass makes good ‘crystals’!

In Glacier, I wanted the clear, translucency of the glass to remain, to simulate ice crystals, so I attached it directly with my trusty acrylic soft gel medium, which wrote about previously here. Geode was similar, but I used a blue-tinted glass instead of clear. A difficulty with this method is that no matter how much soft gel medium you put down first, there will always be some glass pieces that didn’t stick well and fall off when you move the piece.

Crushed glass can also be used more for the texture, which is how I used it in Cave 1 and Crevasse. In these pieces, I attached the crushed glass by sprinkling it over a thick layer of soft gel medium, but then I used acrylic paints thinned with pouring medium the top of the glass. This gives me the coarse texture without the translucence and also helps to make sure the glass fragments are securely attached to the canvas.  

Other potential drawbacks to using crushed glass are the sharp glass fragments than can get scattered over the floor. I tend to work in my studio barefoot, so this can be hazardous. Though admittedly, most of the glass pieces aren’t lethally sharp or anything. I’ve never actually gotten one stuck in my foot, anyway. They’re still not too comfortable to step on. The glass also can add quite a bit of weight to the finished piece, depending on how much glass is used. Kelpie, from my “Elementals” series, for example,  is heavy enough that it needs a pretty sturdy hanger to keep it on the wall. I was using those 3M Command Picture Hanging Strips in my previous apartment and I think it took 4 strips before the piece stopped falling off the wall. (Also, if you haven’t tried 3M Command Strips, they’re Awesome. Especially in a rented apartment where you can’t or don’t want to put holes in the wall.)

What unusual materials have you used in your art? Are there any materials you’ve seen somewhere and thought “Hey, that might look pretty cool in my artwork”? Tell me in the comments; I’d love to hear about it!

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