Resin Art: All polished up


There’s a box sitting in my craft cupboard of pieces that are almost finished. Seriously like 95% done and then I don’t finish them and if that’s not the story of my life I don’t know. But yesterday I made myself take out the Dremel and the polishing paste and finally finished some of them. None of these are new. I do have some larger projects planned, one that will hopefully proceed next week and one that I’m kind of respectfully dreading to start. In the meantime, here’s some pretty. With very bad pics. Just imagine the pieces being artfully draped on moss in the sunlight.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Bog oak with red resin. This piece from Marcus made me wonder for a long time, as the original was a longish rhombus. It was too long to use for one piece with resin on top and too short for two pieces. This is what I came up with, and I like it a lot. The red is pretty dark and “glows” like fire.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

“Old something” with resin. The problem with photographing polished resin pieces indoors is that the light will fracture and reflect, leading to blurry pics. I had to try five times to get a pic of this piece. OK, I could set up the whole camera equipment, using indirect light, etc., etc., but who’s got time for that?

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Nailed it! Got the inspiration from another resin artist. The partially sanded down nails really look cool, but they also burn your fingers when sanding…

©Giliell, all rights reserved

A rose by any other name… Pear wood and dried rose bud. Here my problem was how to turn it into a pendant. For some reason, the piece ended up with little resin above the rose, so I didn’t want to drill a hole into it, not even for a hook. Yesterday I finally had an idea. I used copper wire to “hug” the piece.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

I drilled a hole into the bottom, hid the ends of the wire and fixed it with some UV resin. There’s also a dollop of UV resin on the top, so the piece won’t slip out of the wire.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

I also finally managed to finish voyager’s pieces. Dear voyager, they’ll be sent your way next week.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

What happened here? For some reason, the resin hadn’t soaked through and sanding removed the resin soaked parts of the wood. I really should get myself a pressure pot. From 600 grit onwards, I need to do wet sanding. You guess it: the wood soaked up the water and burst the resin. One piece fell completely apart, one lost a piece at the side (yet to come)

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Yeah, I actually wanted it to be that shape…

And, last but not least, a little egg. This has been made without mould or lathe, and I’m pretty proud of it.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Comments

  1. kestrel says

    They look fantastic all polished up. The egg looks like amber… that’s pretty neat. My favorite is the rose!

  2. Tethys says

    I always enjoy seeing what people create. The egg is my favorite. It looks like a fossil.

    Bandage tape on the fingertips is my method of protecting my skin from hot metal. The finished effect of the nails is very cool!

  3. says

    They are all beautiful, but I especially love that dragon’s egg and the rose bud.

    A pressure and/or vacuum chamber would be best, of course, but if the wood you are using is hard and with very closed and small pores -- which includes all of the wood that I have sent you for example -- even that might not be enough. So you probably may have to slather more epoxy on the wood once it gets exposed and only polish it after that.

    Using denatured alcohol to wet the paper instead of water during polishing will help a bit with the swelling, but it is of course a bit more costly. I did use it to polish knife handles when I was not 100% sure that the wood was fully infused by the resin. and after I was done with that I did of course apply some more resin.

  4. says

    The “old something” is oak burl. It’s actually from the same piece that I am about to dunk in a resin-bath.

    I love the creativity you show in these! Seriously! It’s a totally different way of seeing the pieces from what I can do and it makes me very happy.

  5. voyager says

    Wow, Giliell. You are very talented and creative. The egg is fabulous and it does look like amber. The rose is also pretty, but I love the wood and resin pieces best. The blue looks so good next to the wood and the back (indigo?) highlights are perfect.
    I look forward to your package with delight.

Leave a Reply