Resin Art: In the Midnight Hour, She Cried More, More, More

I hope you aren’t tired of my jewellery yet, because I’m once again firmly stuck in the crafting phase of the pandemic and I have no interest of getting out of it soon. For one thing, there are worse coping mechanisms (just don’t ask my bank account. OTOH there’s little else to spend my fun money on right now). For another, I end up with cool jewellery. I can start something and then before I notice or have time to worry, it’s midnight and I go to bed happy.

As I mentioned before, I’m currently working with UV resin, which also means I watch a lot of UV resin tutorials on Youtube. Here’s an interesting divide: Tutorials for epoxy resin, especially lamps and such are often by American guys with huge tool shops that make me constantly unhappy, because I lack the space and probably 20k to blow on the machines.

See for example this guy, who does make cool stuff:

UV resin artists OTOH tend to be female and Japanese. You can watch their videos for inspiration or pure relaxation, like this lady’s videos:

I’m wondering if it has something to do with culture, but also space, of which Americans outside the big cities seem to have more.

Anyway, I wanted to show you what I came up with:

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

These two pairs are made with nail art transfer foil. They’re not perfect yet as the transfer foil is tricky and needs some practise, but I do like them. I’m currently wearing the gold ones, which look really classy.

The next two pairs also belong together, one being trial and error the other being what I actually intended.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Don’t get me wrong, these are perfectly lovely earrings (though the right one is a bit bubbly from the flowers). They are just not what I had planned- I first made a smaller square with the gold foil, which was then embedded in the larger square… Of course the small clear square vanished completely in the clear resin, making that extra step pretty much redundant.

Back to square one (haha). This time I mixed golden pigment in with the small square and now I get those crisp geometrical lines.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

I need to remember to dip the flowers in resin before I embed them. Too many bubbles, but I still really like the simple elegance here.

Than goodness they came out fine, because the third project for that night surely didn’t.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

I was using up some UV resin that I still had, and I still had it for a good reason: it’s horrible. I have no idea how something can be that thick and runny at the same time. As a result there are tons of irremovable bubbles but it also kept flowing over the sides, making the whole piece clunky. I was looking for some delicate elegance, I got this. I tried again yesterday and this time the results are much more what I was looking for:

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Pendant with matching earrings. The colour is a bit dark in the pic, they’re the same midnight blue as above, a pigment that I absofuckinglutely love. These pieces also show one of the great advantages of using UV resin: precise control. I can add the wire and the pearls and the beads and place them exactly where I want them.

And last but not least, a completely different technique: Cherry blossom earrings

©Giliell, all rights reserved

I like earrings where it#s clearly a pair, but two different designs. These are made by forming the wire into petals and then adding a thin layer of resin. Here you really have to get the consistence right. I first tried with the above mentioned blue pigment, but adding pigment made the resin too thick, so I had to try again with clear ink for resin. I’m not completely happy with how the flowers are dangling on the chain and might try to change that again. I also think I need a matching necklace.

Fungi Friday

It’s unusual to find mushrooms in the winter, but Avalus has a good eye and found a few to share with us. Enjoy.

Here are some photos I took over the last few days of January mushrooms.

These two I found in front of the department building. I really like the colour of their tops, they look like leather. The undersides look fascinating too. (photos 1 & 2)

Yesterday we had some snow as well and today I found this little fella, poking out the fresh snow. (photo 3)

Photo 1, ©Avalus, all rights reserved.

Photo 2, ©Avalus, all rights reserved.

Photo 3, ©Avalus, all rights reserved.

The Art of …

… modern American Artist, Frank Morrison

Morrison began his career as a graffiti artist but has become known for his work portraying black culture. According to the artist’s web site,

Morrison strives to capture people as they are, translating emotions through his paintings and leaving a memoir of our life and times today. His work depicts African-American livelihood in a way that is both familiar and comforting to those who often feel histories have been forgotten and culture has been usurped.
Citing both Ernie Barnes and Annie Lee as forebearers of this tradition, Morrison remarks on his practice, “My work dignifies the evolllution of everyday, underrepresented people and places within the urban landscape. I seek to both highlight and preserve the soul of the city through the lens of hip-hop culture and  urban iconography. I want people to experience the visual rhythms that choreograph life for the average, everyday person.”

Picture That, by Frank Morrison. Image from Afropunk

“What!” by Frank Morrison. Image from Afropunk

The Art of …

… posters, by Ridwan Adhami, Shephard Fairey, Jessica Sabogal, Ernesto Yerena, Delphine Diallo, Ayse Gursoz, and Arlene Mejorado.

They were  commissioned by The Amplifier Foundation, a non-profit organization that raises the voices of grassroots movements through art and community engagement.

Today seems like a good day to wave hi to the U.S.A. and show off some of her best modern artists.

 

Poster series We the People by various artists. Image from NBC, courtesy of The Amplifier Foundation

“American identity starts with Native resistance. In this artwork, Ernesto Yerena honors Helen Red Feather of the Lakota tribe during her bravery and resilience at the Standing Rock reservation in 2016. She was originally photographed by Ayşe Gürsöz while protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline.” Words and image from The Amplifier Foundation.

“Ridwan Adhami decided to photograph a Muslim woman wearing an American flag as a hijab for the five-year anniversary of 9/11. They stood at the site of the World Trade Center, capturing the iconic image, without knowing just how far it would eventually go…More than a decade later, Adhami and Shepard Fairey reincarnated the image for Amplifier’s We the People campaign. As the Trump administration’s Muslim Ban continues to wage a war on Islamic faith, the artwork’s message will keep ringing loud and clear. There is no room for fear, only freedom.” Words and Image from The Amplifier Foundation.

“This piece from artist Jessica Sabogal focuses on the love, affection, and inspiration that will continue to persevere through the darkness.”Words and image from The Amplifier Foundation.

“At a time of so much discrimination and injustice, this photograph taken by French and Senegalese artist Delphine Diallo and converted into an illustration by Shepard Fairey reminds us of the power of youth and the world we’re building around them.” Words and image from The Amplifier Foundation

“…this photograph taken by Arlene Mejorado and illustrated by Shepard Fairey is a crucial part of the We the People campaign. Mejorado, a photographer and documentary-maker from California, describes herself as “the daughter of migrants, brown, queer, multi-ethnic, and aspirant of beauty and truth.” The image depicts Xicana activist Maribel Valdez Gonzalez, described by the artist as “an incredible queer, first gen, muxerista, educator who constantly pushes my politics.” The final artwork was carried by thousands at the Women’s March for the 2017 inauguration.” Words and image from The Amplifier Foundation

Doiling Away All the Time

My vacuum pump was delayed one more week but it should be due to arrive today afternoon. In the meantime, the weather was cold and I could not be arsed to heat the workshop and start another project. So I have decided to spend some time exercising my bobbin lace making skills again.

Last year I have taken my grandmother’s old blueprints and I scanned them. And now I took the scans to photoshop and I refined them into a form that can be printed out.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

As you can see, these are true antique blueprints, made with the technology that actually gave us the word.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

For the printable templates, I have refined the curves a bit but I have done my best to preserve the original placement of pins and knots as well as the type of weave. My intention was to reproduce the old work, not to reinterpret it.

Round doily, ca. 16 cm across. © Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

Round doily, ca. 20 cm across. © Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

Oval doily, ca 16×25 cm. © Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

Doilies are insidious. You make the inner circle first and that is quick and easy. Then the next inner circle takes a bit longer but it is fairly quick still. The next one then takes even longer. And the outermost one then drags on and on for what feels like forever.

Bobbin lace making shows itself to be a reasonable upper-back and shoulder exercise. The bobbins weigh next to nothing but holding your hands at breast height for hours is not easy. It is not exactly hard work, but it is not as easy as some might think.

Regarding my technique, I am not at my mother’s or my grandmother’s level yet. I am not able to hide the beginnings/ends as well as they do, neither can I make some types of lace (the diamond shapes on the last one are fugly) as neat and regular as they do. However they both were making bobbin lace since childhood and for decades, whereas I only learned it last year, so I am not losing any sleep over not being as good as they.

The Art of …

… illustration, by Al-Jazari

This is one of many whimsical illustrations from the ancient Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Inventions by Turkish artist Al-Jazari. I’ll be featuring more pages from this book from time to time. It’s a treasure trove of wonder.

The Elephant Clock, from The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Inventions, 1206, by Al Jazari. Image from Wikiart

 

 

Still more Resin Fun

Two more pendants.

I also finished some more shakers, but I didn’t take pics. I really hope that this year the little Christmas market in my friends’ village can take place so we can put up a craft stall again, or my house will burst with finished trinkets.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

I got myself a small set with “everything for UV resin jewellery projects” (except a lamp, I have one already), because I wanted to have some inspiration/ a challenge to work with (and needed new UV resin) and I was not disappointed. Sadly those monthly subscription boxes you can get in the US haven’t caught on here. I’d really enjoy those.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

The pic doesn’t show the snowflake background, which makes it a true winter accessory.

Resin Art: Just some fun

Now, one of the good things last year was that we finally installed a “work bench”, i.e. my grandma’s old kitchen cupboards, giving me space to work on and where I can leave my stuff over night. The downside is that it’s in the unheated cellar room. Being fully underground, that’s the coolest room in the house, as it also doesn’t get any “spare heat” from that fucking huge wood pellet furnace. This makes working with epoxy resin in winter difficult. The epoxy is not really runny, and while curing you’re prone to “Kawaii sheen”: the surface gets matte and has some dots, much like the “soft, softer, do I need glasses” blurry filters you sometimes get in Mangas or animes. That’s not a problem when you cast something in silicone: the top surface is in the silicone and thus comes out shiny, but it is a problem when you want to topcoat something.

To solve the issue I dragged a gas heater we bought during renovations from the garage to the cellar and got a new gas bottle. This worked well the first time, but apparently there’s something wrong with the switch, so I can’t actually turn it to any setting apart from “starting” anymore. But I really, really, really wanted to do some resin, so I took the UV resin upstairs. You generally only work with small amounts and little stuff, so that’s ok to do in the kitchen. I just hope that the safety googles aren’t just labelled as “UV filter”, but actually are, or my eyes are fucked.

So here’s some less artsy and more cutesy projects.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

A seashell shaker. The shaker form is epoxy resin. No reason to waste lots of expensive UV resin on it. Also: white UV resin doesn’t actually cure well, because the white pigment of course blocks the UV light from reaching everything below the surface.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

A seashell charm. This didn’t turn out quite as well. I should have coloured the first blue layer a lot darker, but it’s still nice.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Look who didn’t mix her resin and her dye well enough… But I actually love how the dye separated from the resin. I sealed both sides well with clear resin to make sure nothing stains or sticks.

And now my favourite: the galaxy fox:

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

It’s got so much sparkle, and that’s sometimes the thing you really need.

The Art of …

… glass, by Dale Chihuly

These photos were taken at the artist’s Seattle Gallery called Garden and Glass. Photos are by Mike Heller Photography. and there is much more to see from the gallery at his site. I’ve chosen a few of my favourites and they can be seen below the fold.

From the exhibit Garden and Glass by Dale Chihuly. Photo by Mike Heller.

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