It’s got layers!

One of the things that I’ve learned so far is that when things don’t go your way, the answer is usually to add more layers (and time, sigh).

We (my BFFs and I) are going to participate in a one day small village Christmas market and I’m producing merchandise for this (i.e. I have an excuse to make a lot of resin stuff). As usually i have many ideas and sometimes they even turn out as planned, especially the second time.

First, a pendant you already know plus its failed forerunner:

As you can see, in the right one the leaf has been swallowed by the blue. Here I poured a layer of clear resin, added the leaf, and then poured the blue onto the wet resin. The best description here is “interesting”.

The rest is below the fold ’cause it’s a lot of pictures.

Next are the winter pendants. Have you ever noticed how nature doesn’t like to waste a good design? That’s why you can find things again and again and fern leaves will make wonderful tiny firs and spruces.

Here I encountered another version of this problem: Runny colours.

In both versions, I poured a first layer with the plants and the stars. In the right version I then poured white coloured resin on the bottom and blue one on the top and for some nasty chemical reasons the white one moved up, obscuring the “tree”. This happened in almost all the pieces that I cast. I think it has got something to do with the white colour, because it’s been behaving oddly in other ways as well, like sinking to the bottom, even though it’s the same brand as the rest of the colours that I use.

In the left version I simply painted the snow on, using acrylics. I think that worked well and added a nice texture.

The next idea was to make Northern Lights pendants:

They actually look better in the picture, but I still do like how they turned out in principle but need to work on the details. I used the same technique as for the trees: First pour and let harden a clear layer. then I painted on the mountains. Then I poured another clear layer. I waited until the resin got a bit less liquid and then “painted” the Northern Lights using different coloured resin. I let that layer cure as well and finally cast the black/blue sky.

For me, the colours aren’t vibrant enough. the dark background swallows way too much colour, so I’ll try again adding yet another layer. I will paint the mountains twice to make them glow and I’ll pour a green/transparent layer behind the Northern Lights as well. wish me luck.

 

For my last projects I roughly followed this tutorial.

I collected some really mouldy and disgusting wood that had turned so soft it was almost a sponge and dried it in the microwave. If there were still any incest eggs in it they should be fried by now. I stole some sand from a neighbour’s driveway and I smashed up some pebbles. I collected two different kinds of moss and dried them in semolina so they wouldn’t lose their shape. And I ordered small glass bottles.

First I readies my wood, painted some of it a bit greenish and glued moss on top of it. Then I glued it into the bottle, added sand and stones and blue resin. For some bottles I skipped the wood and added a different, bigger moss. these I filled to the brim directly, but I remixed the colour several times to create a gradient like like shining down into the sea.

The ones with the mystery islands then got white resin to create the air. In the video you can see the guy pulling up the almost cured resin, but for me that time would have been 3 a.m. In two bottles I painted on waves and I like that. Funny enough, the blue water looked very dark before I poured on the clear resin, but much lighter afterwards, which is something I have to remember. After letting the “air” cure until it was almost hard I added the sky with the clouds. The “galaxy” in the video was a bit much for my taste, but I quite like the clouds.

Now, I know you all want pictures, yet this time they don’t do them credit, as the glass bottles reflect too much light.