These weren’t done inside the Makerspace (way too messy, especially while I’m new at this technique), but they were inspired by several projects I saw there!
I wanted to try resin paintings- the ones were you mix colors into resin then pour on the canvas and kind of let the resin do what it wants to do. At first I had no idea about how to do any of it, so the pigment to resin ratio was pretty off on this first one.
After that I got a bit better at ratios. In this next one I tried dropping inks and paints onto the resin after it was already poured. That and a happy accident with pearl powder created a nice focal point in this next one. Reminds me of the eye of Jupiter.
That one also got me thinking "man, it would be cool to try and make a one that looks like galaxies in space.’ So I started trying things that could get me there. I got a bunch of 1 square ft panels to try different things on, with the goal of eventually doing a 2’ x 2’ piece epic space piece.
This one is the first where I tried some alcohol ink I made myself. The ink was made by soaking sharpie ink cartridges in isopropyl alcohol.
Then tried making three at one time that would be closer to the swirly space look. Unfortunately, I found out the hard way that if I use too much of the ink I made myself, the alcohol lights up like a torch when flaming the resin if you don’t wait long enough. So, after the fire extinguisher dust settled, I had to make the most of three paintings that went sideways with all the pink dust and scattered wet resin. Did you know that some fire extinguishers have pink dust? I do now.
They turned out fine as standalones, and I learned a few other things in addition to the ‘too much alcohol’ thing. Including trying an irregular top layer of resin on purpose, which when it’s extra webby creates kind of a cool effect, instead of looking like a spot you missed covering on accident.
I reworked my process and used the ink I made myself to put down a layer of color before getting the resin out to make a backdrop for the whole thing. Here’s the first ink layer when it dried:
And after I added the resin with more colors, including some just clear to reveal the colors underneath.
And final!
I’m pretty happy with how spacey it looks! And it’s too bad that photos don’t capture the sweet sheen that’s happening on the metallic inks and powders that are in there. Definitely one of those things that’s cooler in person.
Next I’m going to try adding in some depth with a few layers of resin and color. Here are the beginnings of that experiment:
These turned out to be really fun! I usually go for more realism in my paintings, so its really fun letting go of some of the process and seeing what happens. Need to also figure out where/how to sell them. I’m running out of room in my garage!
