Remnants Of Olde

Are you hearing that Vanilla Ice song in your head now?  Sorry about that!

I’m taking it easy since I’ve been finishing up a kazillion little details to get the rest of the projects sent in for my mixed media art book.  To say I’m crispy fried is an understatement.   Thankfully all that’s left for the book is flying to Cincinnati to do the photo shoot and finish writing the instructions.  More about *that* later.

So this isn’t about THAT ~ it’s about Susan Lenart Kazmer’s ICE Resin.  And specifically some pieces I’ve made using it.  By the way I am so gleefully happy to be taking my second class with Susan at Artfest next month.  It is using enamel so I’m even more excited since I’ve been wanting to learn this for so long.   Hooray!!

Even though I made these a while ago I’m sharing these with you now because – wait for it! – this week starts a blog hop party with art pieces using ICE Resin.  There is a full list on the Objects and Elements blog of all the artists you can hop to as well as at the end of this post.  It will be so fun to see what everyone came up with since it can be any kind of art – not just jewelry.

Mine are jewelry but I used what might be considered rather different techniques so for the first time I’ll share the details on how I made them.

First a little background on what these are.  The front of Room 422 is has a little doll looking out a window of resin.  The metal piece is a meat grinder gear.   The doll head wouldn’t have fit (it would have been too wide) except when I found it at an antique store the back of her head was broken and there was only the head.  So sad.   The doll appeared to be from the same era as the Frozen Charlottes but wasn’t one.

The back  has part of a claim tag this one being #422 covered in domed resin.  Because the this reminded me of a little room with a doll looking out the window, that’s where the name Room 422 came from.

Room 422  used three different techniques with resin.  The front was made by burnishing  a piece of clear packing tape over the opening.  The metal gear was then laid face down and a small amount of resin was poured into the “window”.  When that had cured, I then placed the doll face down and poured more freshly mixed resin around it.  The second pour of resin filled in the spaces around the sides and in front of the doll face.  When that cured the tape was removed and a small coating of clear acrylic medium was brushed on over the resin to turn it from a matte finish to a gloss finish thereby making it translucent rather than opaque.

The final resin technique was pouring some of the already mixed resin into a domed mold.  When this was cured it was placed with the dome side out.  In the middle of this resin “sandwich” was a single earring that was held in place with epoxy resin clay (this is the clay that I’m using for all project in the mixed media art book).  The earring was used as a decorative element and also to attach the necklace to as well as the chain with charms on the bottom.

The second jewelry piece I used ICE resin on was this piece of driftwood.  I wish I had taken a “before” shot so you could see that there was hardly any wood left on the bottom.  It had mostly eroded away and some sea grass was entangled in the remaining wood.

Instead of a small patch of clear packing tape I used quite a bit of the clear tape with masking tape over that to really hold in the resin.  The shape you see is the shape the tape took on when I wrapped it around what was left of the wood on the bottom.  Once the tape was in place and burnished together and to the driftwood piece very well, I injected the resin into the cavities.  It was left upright in a plastic cup to cure.  When it was removed there were some seams and uneven areas showing from the tape.  I sanded those away with a series of  automotive grade (very fine) sandpaper until it was very smooth to the touch and then finished the surface as with Room 422 with a very thin coat of gloss acrylic medium to bring it from a matte to transparent finish.

The leaf bale is electroformed copper over (you guessed it!) epoxy resin clay.

In honor of the ICE Resin Blog Hop, I am offering this unique textured resin online workshop to the public for the first time ever!  The cost is $40 BUT if you mention ICE Resin  when you sign up by Friday, February 19 I will credit back $10 by Paypal so the class will only be $30.  This is a great workshop that has received awesome reviews at art retreats.  There are several techniques that Charley and I developed so you can find these nowhere else!  You can find this workshop on my Mixed Media Art site which is a great place to be with nearly 850 artists and well over 4000 gorgeous pieces of art plus creative challenges and lots of other things creative and inspire.  Oh and did I mention it is completely free to join?!?!?

One of the resin techniques is absolutely mesmerizing because it creates  an amazing play of light on image below.  As interesting as the photo looks, when people see this in person they are blown away!!!

Ready to hop?!?!?  Here are the other sites with ICE resin creations!

Ro Bhrun http://robruhn.blogspot.com/

Karen Burns http://web.me.com/vintagefindings/Vintage_Findings/Blog/Blog.html

Keecia Frazee Deveney http://www.lemoncholys.blogspot.com/

Mary Jane Dodd — Mary Jane http://mairedodd.blogspot.com/

Melanie Earthenwood http://earthenwood-beads.blogspot.com/

Shea Fragoso http://www.whathappensnext.typepad.com/

Vickie Hallmark http://fiberartglass.blogspot.com/

Jill Liles http://livngoodjewelry.blogspot.com/

Jess Italia Lincoln at Vintaj: http://www.vintaj.com/wpblog/

Heather Powers http://www.humblebeads.blogspot.com/ and http://www.artbeadscene.blogspot.com/

Amy Purdes http://www.spritecreations.blogspot.com/

Jenny Barnett Rohrs http://www.crafttestdummies.com/

Stephanie Rubiano http://www.soigathered.typepad.com/

Lisa Sommerville  http://www.lisasomerville.com/

Kim Taylor http://sassycrafter.blogspot.com/

The Objects and Elements Design Team and Susan Lenart Kazmer:

Jen Cushman  http://www.objectsandelements.typepad.com/jencushman/

Deryn Mentock http://somethingsublime.typepad.com/

Kristen Robinson http://kristenrobinson.typepad.com/

Barbe Saint John  http://barbesaintjohn.blogspot.com/

Susan Lenart Kazmer http://susan-lenart-kazmer.blogspot.com/