Playing with Resin

Since my ceramic bead-making mojo went on an extended vacation many months ago, I've been playing in other mediums.  This time I wanted to dabble with resin again.  It's been a couple years since I've really experimented with it so I ordered up some Ice Resin (my personal favorite brand) and got to work.

Setting up

When working with resin, make sure you work on a disposable surface.  This can get messy!  I like to work on top of a garbage bag.  Don't forget proper ventilation either!

I also suggest setting out all the colors/glitters/embellishments BEFORE you pour and mix your resin.  You have a limited amount of time to work with resin so decide what you want to do with it beforehand.  

Glitter and oil paints

I decided to play with oil paints and various glitters for my first batch.  There are so many glitters on the market and such a huge range of paint colors that the combinations are endless!

First batch and fail

My first batch was a bit of a mess. I didn't stir the paints in all the way and I clumped too much glitter into the resin.  I let these set for a day, popped them out and disposed of them.

Multi-layered cabochons

One of the neat things about resin is that you can layer it.  For the pieces above, I poured a clear layer first and added some seashells and brass charms.  After that layer cured, I pour another layer with two different colors for the shell cabochon and mica flakes for the key cabochon.  A third layer was added the following day with glitter and clear resin.

Resin cabochons

I'm really happy with how many of the cabochons turned out.  They still need to be wet sanded and filed.  I can see using resin cabochons with my bead embroidery.  They can also be drilled and turned into pendants.  I currently have a sanding station set up and another batch of pieces curing in the molds.

If you'd like to try resin, here are some great resources:

Ice Resin

Resin Obsession
I Love Resin

The Art of Resin Jewelry

Resin Art Fun Open Forum (Facebook)

Substitutions

I don't know about you but sometimes I fall in love with a pattern or technique in beading and then I see the materials list and.......

 Well I know how you feel and it happened again to me when I saw the newest Beadwork magazine.

 Cindy Holsclaw has a snippet of an earring pattern in there that uses dragon scale beads and makes a cute little flower.  I flipped to the materials list and there it was.  Half tilas and bugles.  Oh boy I have them but not to match the dragon scales so I started to play with substituting beads that are in my stash.

It worked but it wasn't quite the look I was going for.  It seemed a bit too high.

She showed a bracelet that was really what attracted me to the design.  This one was just a bit on the high side.  What to do.  I still don't have the half tilas but what if I dug through my bin to see if there were bugles hiding somewhere.

I thought with a tiny bit of white it would bring the flowers out more and you know it really did.

So sometimes you can just adjust a pattern or substitute a bead and still get the same effect.  I cant wait to finish this one.

How to Have a Professional Web Presence when You Don't Have a Website

I was chatting with my niece a couple days ago about her frustration in trying to search for a summer internship in graphic design. She had heard back from one place that requested a link to her online portfolio. So I asked her if she has an online portfolio. Nope. But a couple of her classmates had mentioned a website called Behance. She had not had time to look into it yet. Being the ever curious person that I am, I immediately went to the website and signed up for an account to see how difficult it is to use the site and get a feel for how to use it.

The answer? Not difficult at all. Assuming you have photos ready to upload, (and why wouldn't you if you were looking for an place to host a portfolio?) you can be up and running in five minutes.

It got me thinking about our art jewelry community and how it could benefit us. I know of several extremely talented people who do not have a website. Having an elegant and professional looking portfolio site would be a great method of sharing beautiful photos of your work with those who want to see it. Even if you do have a website, this site could be a supplement to your website and another place for people to find you.

How much does it cost? Nothing.

If you have a subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud, (which I do not, so cannot talk about it with any kind of personal knowledge) you are able to share directly to Behance from within other programs included in the creative cloud.

While playing around on the site, I discovered they have a Jewelry Design portfolio menu.

The website is clean and beautiful, easy to use, and they provide some extra bells and whistles like traffic stats, appreciations (similar to Facebook likes), job postings, and social media buttons.  

After playing with Behance I had a poke around to see if there are other free online portfolio sites. One that stood out is called Coroflot. Once again, I joined and played a bit with it. Signing up is super easy and making a profile and uploading photos could take as little as a few minutes. 

Unlike Behance, Coroflot does not offer a Jewelry Design option. However, they do offer Awesomeness, and that is probably more accurate, right? 

The closest option to jewelry design falls under fashion/apparel. Honestly, that isn't a deal breaker for me. 

Coroflot is also free while offering nice features like uploading your resume, tagging your profile so people can find your work more easily, creating job alerts, and search job postings. You can see your account statistics, and there's also a social aspect to the site.

 During the small amount of time spent playing with both sites, I cannot see a downside to either one, so it boils down to personal preference.

Painting with smoke

This year I’ve decided that I will be concentrating on Raku firing for my ceramics, and I’m starting out with something I haven’t tried before… Naked Raku. When I told my husband what I’d be doing, he showed much more interest than he usually does, but the naked refers to the clay. The technique results in an unglazed piece… not quite as daring as it sounds, but still pretty exciting!

Naked Raku Pendants

So while I’ve been totally obsessed and not doing much else for the past few weeks, I thought I’d share how they are made… I hope you find it interesting! 

I have been researching this technique for a couple of years and there are some amazing ceramic artists who have been kind enough to share their processes to help others. A couple of my favourites are Ashraf Hanna, and Kate & Will Jacobson. Their work is really something to aspire to and they give regular classes demonstrating their techniques. 

Ashraf Hanna

Kate & Will Jacobson

Unfortunately, I’ve never had the opportunity to take a Raku class so everything I have learned has come from what other clay artists have been kind enough to share in their books, and just trying it out. 

Here’s how I’ve taken the techniques and adapted them to work on a smaller scale for my work…

To begin, raku clay is formed in to shapes for pendants, beads and other components. 

Just before they are bone dry, they are burnished with a smooth pebble. This compresses the clay, removes any dints and polishes it.

Burnishing

You can see here the difference between the pieces. One is the rough clay as it’s first formed, the other is smooth and shiny where it has been polished. My burnishing technique isn’t quite as good as others, I’m very impatient and would lose interest going over the same piece 3 times, so I’ve found that burnishing just before the piece is totally dry gives a nice enough sheen for the finished item.

The reason for burnishing is to help the slip/glaze release in the firing process. It also gives the final piece a beautiful finish.

The pieces are bisque fired and once cooled, a layer of slip is applied. Slip is liquid clay. Mine is made from the same clay as I use for making the pendants, by mixing it with water until it becomes a thin liquid and straining out the grog.

Coating with slip

Once the slip is dried, the pieces are then coated with a sacrificial glaze. This is made using basic materials, frit and china clay. It doesn’t have to be fancy as it will all be destroyed in the firing, it's job is just to hold the slip in place during the firing process. Without the glaze the slip would pop off when removed from the kiln and your design would be lost. 

Coating with glaze

Again, the pieces are dried and a rough outline of a design is sketched on to the piece. Using a sharp skewer the design is etched on to the piece scratching through the layers of slip and glaze down to the bare clay. It is better to use a wooden tool to draw the design so that the smooth finish of the clay underneath isn’t scratched.

Etching the design

Now the pieces are ready to go into the kiln. They are fired up to 850oC, taken out and put in to the reduction bin. The bin is filled with sawdust and straw which ignites on contact with the hot pieces and the smoke from the fire colours the pieces where the bare clay has been exposed.

Fire!

After 15 minutes, they are removed from the reduction bin and they look pretty awful.

Hopefully beautiful on the inside.

They are put in to cold water and as they’re still hot, the shock pops off the slip/glaze coating revealing the design on the bare clay.

Naked raku Mackintosh style roses

Cleaning up the pieces

Revealing the design

Once they’re all cleaned up they go in to the oven for half an hour to dry them and remove the smoky smell. For a monochrome finish, they can be waxed for protection and to give them a satin shine.

Naked raku pendant

To add a little bit of colour, I used acrylic paint to wash over some of the white areas in the designs, and then they were sealed with wax to protect them.

Adding colour

You can tell the difference in pieces from the first attempt and the second. The second batch turned out much darker, I think because I used more sawdust in the reduction bin for my second firing, but it could be due to different thicknesses of slip and glaze between the batches, ultimately the whole process of Raku comes down to doing what you can then leaving it up to chance. I love that aspect of the process, you can only control so much, the rest of it is down to the kiln gods!

And when they’re in a good mood, you can get some brilliant results!

The finished pieces

Thanks for reading, and I'd love to hear what new things you're planning to try out in 2016!