Resin-ate

When I stopped working at my day job, I was certain that I would be able to write a new blog post at least once a week. As it turns out, I have been having way too much fun doing not much of anything to keep up with that sort of schedule.

But doing nothing gets old fast for me, so I started re-arranging one of the bedrooms (the one we call The Girls' Room) into a studio. I have a way to go yet, because there are remnants from previous occupants (The Girls) that need to be stored, but I do have a good work space carved out. The last couple of weeks have been filled with jewelry making and offline writing. Time to share some of the former...

Last year I took a class from guest instructor Lisa Pavelka at my local bead shop. Lisa is an amazing artist who works in many different media--the class that I took was all about using resin to make jewelry. Lisa has developed a one-step resin that cures in a few minutes under UV light. It is a wonderful product. It spreads out evenly over flat surfaces and domes naturally as it spreads. It has high surface tension so, unless you flood the surface with resin, it will not overflow the edge of the underlying substrate. Lisa showed us how to layer thin coats of resin, curing under UV light between each coat, to create dimensional pieces.

Because Lisa and her team are entirely awesome, they provided Magic Glos (TM) along with round acrylic blanks, tiny metal components, little flowers, glitter, rub-on foil, clear transfers and other items to make our pieces. Under her guidance, this is the very first resin piece that I ever made:

This piece contains several layers of resin on top of a round acrylic blank. There are small metal pieces (a key, a flower shape and clock cogs) as well as glitter, a dried flower and black transfers incorporated into the resin. The two silver wheels on the sides are partially embedded in resin to provide a way to attach a chain or other necklace. I am not sure what sort of jewelry piece I will make using this. Perhaps I will keep it as is to remind me of how I started out with this medium. Using resin is a fun process and, because each layer cures in 3 - 5 minutes, you can create a finished piece very quickly.

(Note: As further evidence of Lisa's awesomeness, all of the students received a package from her a week or so after the class. This package contained even more items from Lisa's line to encourage us to experiment with our newly acquired resin-working skills. I sent a thank you note at the time but wanted to give a public shout-out to Ms Pavelka for her ability to merge artistic talent with graceful, generous customer service.)

Bead weaving with a single needle is still my first love when it comes to jewelry making, but I enjoy having lots of other techniques at my disposal. Resin has been my medium of choice for the past couple of weeks.

My birthstone is ruby, so I decided to make myself a ruby necklace & earrings. I started with three pieces of silver filigree from my hoard. I mixed up a tiny bit of resin with red & silver glitter. This was the first layer on my homemade gems. After curing the glitter layer, I added a few layers of resin to create domed jewels. Once everything was cured I glued red crystals onto the necklace filigree and added the findings to make this necklace:

 

Here is a side view which shows how the beautifully this resin domes across the top:

 



This doming acts as a lens so that items added in previous layers are magnified. It is really cool to watch a piece develop.

These are the earrings that go with the necklace:

This is a ring that I made out of clear and red crystals. No resin in this piece. The crystals are on wire-wrapped head pins and attached to a ring form with jump rings:

There is a lot of movement to the ring, which I like. It is also free-form as opposed to the necklace & earrings, which are more structured. When I design pieces to go together, I like to have some aspects that are not completely matchy-matchy across all of the pieces.

When this process stops resin-ating (sorry!) with me, I will move on to another technique. For the foreseeable future, though, I'm having a blast dropping little tiny shiny things into Magic Glos (TM).

Corona del Mar

Corona del Mar means ‘crown of the sea’. To my family it also means lovely memories; Mom would often pack a picnic lunch and take my sisters and me to the beach during the summer months.  Actually, the phrase ‘picnic lunch’ barely does Mom justice. My mother was (still is) a dynamic combination of Betty Crocker and Donna Reed. Beach lunches usually consisted of fried chicken, potato salad and cookies, everything home-made and all eaten from a plate using a knife & fork. The inevitable slight sprinkling of sand that would stick to our food is probably the reason that I only like extra-crispy fried chicken to this day.

By the way, I have noticed that there appears to be a tradition in the blogging community to give nicknames to real people that one writes about. In my world, every family member, friend and pet has multiple nicknames so the chore will be to choose which nickname to use for each person. That is, except for my youngest sister, Barf being just too good to pass up.

There is a main beach at Corona del Mar, and there is a sheltered lagoon behind a jetty. Depending on the tide there is a small, shifting lagoon-side spit of exposed sand. People who climb over the jetty are not always certain of having a dry place to lay out their beach towels, but the peaceful beauty of this little corner of the ocean is worth the hike.

These two pieces are named after the beaches of Corona del Mar. I am very much in love with ocean blues & greens. I often combine these tones in my designs. While stitching these two companion pieces I imagined tide pool life viewed through the lens of undulating sea water.

The collar necklace is called Big Corona (what the locals call the main beach):

And the cuff bracelet is called Little Corona (the moniker for the lagoon):

Little Corona is finished & ready to wear. Big Corona is not completely beaded. Once the beading on the front is complete I will cover the reverse side of the piece with Ultrasuede ®, stitch a picot border around the entire edge and add a chain or other closure. If you look closely at Big Corona you will see that the beading is done over a piece of printed fabric, in this case a swirly batik. The printed fabric is attached to an underlying stiff white stabilizing fabric.

This is a good opportunity to write about one of my favorite teachers, the late Melanie Doerman. I took a bead embroidery class from Melanie at Brea Bead Works several years ago, and it was a revelation. The value of the class went far beyond learning mere technique. Melanie also taught a way of looking at things in a slightly different way that allowed me to loosen up and trust my own creativity. For example, the idea of attaching a printed fabric to the stabilizer is hers, and it is a brilliant way to avoid the possible paralysis created by facing a blank canvas.

Melanie called herself The Magpie, and this was the name of her website. The site has been taken down since her passing earlier this year but you can take a look at her last published book at Amazon.

Since I tend to fall in love with one color combination to the exclusion of all others, it was a relief to hear Melanie admit to this same sort of obsession during class. At that time she was enamored of bronze seed beads and was using them to cover a large jar to create an elaborately embellished container. She told us that the project was taking more beads and more time than she had imagined, but that she never got tired of those little bronze beads.

Magpie, thank you so much for your generous creative spirit. I hope you finished that project.

Picot:  In clothing design, a picot refers to a loop, usually made of thread or ribbon. It can be either decorative or functional. In beading, a picot is a stitch usually used for edging. The stitch uses three beads combined in such a way that the middle bead pops up above the beads that surround it.

Batik: Cloth that is traditionally made using a wax-resist method to create designs. Motifs usually represent the natural world, especially flowers & plants.