Resin D'etre or What Can You Do With Spare Ceramic Tiles?

Good question!  Well, mine weren't exactly spare because I went to the home improvement store and bought some but this will work for anyone who has some ceramic tiles hanging around from a bath or kitchen renovation.

Flowers on Trellis

 Large Flower

Group of Hyacinths

Let me start from the beginning.  I have these alcohol inks that I bought some time ago.  If you've read any of my prior post, you'll know that I have all kinds of materials and supplies stashed away that I bought for no other reason than I might use them someday.  I think I bought the inks when I was in my card making phase but I'm not sure.  It could have been when I was in my let's try to dye polymer clay, or what can I dye with this phase.  Anyway, I had the inks and I stumbled on a video on You-Tube involving ceramic tiles and flaming alcohol inks.  I actually wrote another post about where I made a few pendants and a set of accent tiles.  If you're interested, you can read it here.  Burn The House Down!

This time I was going to make some ceramic tile coasters for my sister's birthday.  I actually tried to make the alcohol paintings look like something, instead of slopping the ink on and later deciding what shapes I saw.  I think I managed pretty well.  After the tiles were dry, I started with the resin.  For those of you that don't know, resin is extremely sticky!  It also requires precise measuring and mixing time to make it set right.

This is where the Resin D'etre comes in.  Alcohol inks will not stand up to hot, cold or wet environments.  I've done research looking for something that would make the inks impervious to their environment.  Pretty much the only thing I found was resin. I bought some Envirotex Jewelry Resin  The first time I used resin was for some ceramic pendants.  I was kind of nervous, since everything I read about resin indicated that it was difficult to use.  There was the whole precise measuring, then timed mixing and the pouring, oh the pouring!

Actually it wasn't that bad.  I measured out the resin in one of the little cups included in the kit.  Then I added the hardener.  One tip:   I marked the cups with a Sharpie to indicate the amount of each I needed.  You need equal part resin and hardener in order for the mixture to set right.

Then you have to stir it, and stir it, and stir it!  For at least two minutes.  You have to make sure that you stir and scrape the little cup, then stir and scrape some more.  After two minutes, you pour it into another little cup and stir and scrape  some more.  After another minute of additional  stirring, it's time to pour.

I was nervous at this stage.  I wasn't sure how much resin to pour on the pendant.  I had mixed up a total of 1 ounce of resin.  Would it be enough?  Would I have a half coated pendant?  It turns out it was more than enough.  It's a good thing I had a total of three pendants ready to go.  I used up all the resin I had mixed.

Now comes the really hard part.  I had read that you should put some kind of tape around the edges at the back of the piece.  That way any drips that you miss will come off with the tape.  Being an over-confident kind of gal, I figured I didn't need the tape.  I could just scrape any excess off, right?  Wrong!

I placed the pendants onto little inverted cups, so that any excess would drip off.  I had also lined the pan I was using with parchment paper.  So I poured away.  Resin immediately started to drip over the sides and collect underneath.  I was using one of the wooden stick included for stirring to scrape the drips but the pendants and the cups were so light that they kept getting away from me.  I did the best I could but the resin kept dripping and I kept wiping.  After the three pendants were coated, I set my timer for 25 minutes.  Although it says that the resin degasses itself, from all the bubbles I saw, I wasn't so sure.  By some miracle, I must have done everything right!  No bubbles and eventually the dripping stopped.

After 24 hours the resin had set but I had these big globs of resin on the underside of the pendants.  I sanded like mad, but never did remove all the globs of resin.  That's when my ingenuity (or desperation, if you like) kicked in.  I had some black leather that I had purchased for another project.  I cut circles to fit the pendants, glued them in place and problem solved!


Anemones Under The Sea Pendant 

Flower Garden Pendant 

Right now I'm working on a set of four ceramic tile coasters.  I feel more secure using the resin and I think that they are coming out beautifully.

In conclusion, like I've said before, if you want to try something new and out of your comfort zone, I say go for it.  You learn from every new endeavor, even if you fail.  Keep trying until you get it right!

Burn The House Down!

 Set of 3 Decorative Tiles

No, not really, but I have been playing with fire lately.  I found a video on You-Tube in which the author, a user called beetlewing, demonstrated how to use flame to intensify and change the manner in which alcohol inks react on ceramic tiles. Alcohol Inks Tutorial: Playing Wtih Fire  And since I've been playing with alcohol inks and various mediums lately, I decided to take a look.

His video is very good and he creates some wonderful pieces and since I  could only burn this particular  house down once, I decided I'd give it a go.  I found a wonderful ceramic artist who agreed to make me some glazed pendant blanks and I must insist  the blanks, tiles whatever, have to have a glaze on them, otherwise this technique won't work. Don't use any that say bisque fired.

 This particular ceramic artist's has a shop on Etsy called Pottery Heaven and while she doesn't normally sell pendant blanks, I contacted her on FaceBook and she agreed to make some for me.  Since I am naturally impatient when it comes to trying something new, I went to my local home improvement store and bought some 4.25 inch plain white ceramic square tiles, the kind you would use in a bathroom.

I already had the alcohol inks.  I don't know why I bought them in the first place, and I have used them on a few polymer clay pieces but they are so much more fun and work soooo much better on ceramic tiles!

Beetlewing on You-Tube used a cigarette lighter but I was afraid that using one would put my hand and clothing waaay to close to a live flame so I went out and bought a set of those lighters with the long nozzles that you use to light candles.  I used an old cookie sheet and I don't recommend baking cookies on it afterwards because mine is now covered with blobs and smears of dried alcohol ink and alcohol inks are pretty much permanent. 

I put the tile down on the cookie sheet, got out my alcohol inks and started squirting.  Let me say that alcohol inks dry really fast.  Luckily, newly applied alcohol inks can be removed from glazed ceramic tiles with rubbing alcohol.  I made lots of mistakes and had a lot of ugly tiles but finally I got my technique down pat.

I found that making sure the lighter was lit before applying the inks worked a lot better than trying to light the thing after the ink went down.  You should let each section of ink fully flame out before trying to apply more.  I couldn't figure out why one of my inks wasn't squirting out, until I looked at the bottle and realized that I had burned the tip closed!  I had to cut the tip and now it doesn't squirt out as fast as the others.  And here's a tip:  You can't really see the flame, the inks burn with an almost invisible blue flame.  So if you are going to try this, use caution and don't do it with little kids and/or pets around, especially cats or while wearing loose clothing!

I coated some of my pieces with resin (the first time I've ever used resin and that's a whole other story for another time).  

Here are a few more pieces I did.
Flower Garden Alcohol Ink and Resin Ceramic Pendant

 Anemones Under The Sea Alcohol Ink and Resin Ceramic Pendant

And these aren't quite ready.  They're still drying and I need to apply resin to them since they're destined to be a set of coaters.
I'm calling them Spring Garden since they are flower themed:

I recommend you try this technique.  It's fun!  Just don't burn the house down!

All Keyed Up

I've been on a key fob jag lately.  It started with a few dragon claw key fobs.

I posted them on Face Book and sold them quickly, even before I got a chance to list them in my Art Fire shop, Wyvern Designs.

I went on to make several more of these key fobs.  Several in silver, one in purple,

one in green, 

and one that's a bit macabre.   

I've been playing with polymer clay and alcohol inks, lately, so I decided to use up some blank pendants I made some time ago.  It was so much fun dripping the inks onto the blanks then manipulating it by tilting the pendant or using canned air to blow and blend the inks.  After they dried, I starting seeing shapes in the swirls and smears, or maybe it was only my demented mind but I saw them none the less.  This is my first attempt.  I loved the look but realized that the clay was split along the side and would be useless as a key fob.

The next two came out better.  This one is called Mushrooms On The Forest Floor.

And this one is called Wild Flower.

I have several more in the works and I seem to be addicted to finding shapes in the inks.  I just hope that I don't get lost in the images in my key fobs.  You might never hear from me again!

Playing With Polymer Clay

I am enamored with polymer clay.  I don't remember when I discovered it, it might have been years ago when I watched Carol Duval on TV.  I guess I'm dating myself, but oh well.  Anyways, I started playing with polymer clay.

Way back in the stone age, the only type clay I could find, before the intervention of  widespread internet shopping, was Sculpey, which while it is a good clay,  it's not particularly strong and it is a relatively soft.  Then I found Fimo, which I believe is made in Germany.  Fimo is a tough clay in more ways than one.  It is sturdy when baked but I found it to be an exercise in frustration to work with.

The first time I worked with Fimo, now this was years ago, it crumbled into a million itty bitty bits.  I was picking up pieces of Fimo for days and cursing it the whole time.  Then I got the brilliant idea of mixing in some liquid translucent polymer clay.  That worked, after a fashion, but it took hours and hours of kneading and adding more liquid clay.  It was messy and if I scratched my nose without thinking, I ended up with liquid clay smeared across my face!   I would have chucked the whole mess against the wall but I was afraid of the mess it would make and I would have to clean it up.  I abandoned Fimo  for quite some time, after that.  I understand that they revamped the formula to make it easier to work with but I still find it an exercise in frustration.

Then came Premo.  Made by Sculpey, it's sturdier than the original but easier to condition than Fimo.  I thought I was in heaven.  I could create my pieces and not have to worry as much about the distortion that occurred with the softer clay.   And I didn't have to give myself carpal tunnel while doing it!  Perfect!

 So there I was, happily kneading and creating until one day I happened upon another polymer clay artist's website.  While reading the description of one of her pieces I noticed that she mentioned that her pieces were made of jewelry grade polymer clay.  What was this?!  Jewelry grade polymer clay??!!  What had I been using all these years to make my pieces, chopped liver?  I make jewelry, I use polymer clay, therefore the clay I was using must be jewelry grade, right?

Now, I'm naturally curious by nature, so I had to search for this elusive element.  I scoured the web, trying to find this wonder clay.  No luck!  Almost every link for jewelry grade polymer clay had a number of different brands.  I suppose I could have emailed this polymer clay artist and asked her, but some people are touchy about questions about their art and I don't take rejection well.

But during my search, I came upon a clay with the lofty name of  Pardo Professional Art Clay.  Well, being the professional that I am, I thought, this is perfect for me!  I guess there is another version of Pardo which has beeswax added to it, not a good thing, in my opinion, and it was deemed too soft by the artists who tried it.  But the professional clay does not.

Okay, I thought, I'll order some and try it out.  That's when I came across a reference that mentioned using Pardo Professional  Art Clay and alcohol inks.  I must mention here that I'm a compulsive shopper when it comes to crafts.  If I see something that piques my interest, I often buy it, even though I have no idea, at the time, what I'll use it for.  As a consequence, I have plastic tubs full of "carp" that I've bought but never used.  One such purchase was some alcohol inks.  I bought them when I was making greeting cards and I thought they might be interesting to use.  But since I sometimes have the attention span of a gnat, I lost interest in card making before I got to use the inks. 

Now to the real reason for this post!  Pardo Professional Art Clay and alcohol inks!  I've used alcohol inks with Premo translucent clay with varying degrees of success.  Premo tends to get sticky when mixed with the inks and I've had more success mixing in small bits of colored clay.  So I sent for some PPAC(Pardo Professional Art Clay)  Since acronyms are all the rage, I thought I'd make up my own!  Plus I'm tired of typing out Pardo Professional Art Clay every time I mention it! Anyway, the same website had a selection of alcohol inks, as well, so I ordered more of those, since the package I bought years ago only had three different colors. 

These are Tim Holtz  alcohol inks. They have wonderful names like Wild Plum, Butterscotch and Pesto and come in little squeeze bottles.  I couldn't wait!  I watched and read tutorials on using alcohol inks with polymer clay while I waited for my package to arrive.  What I neglected to assimilate was the fact that you should wear some sort of protective clothing while using these inks.  I don't know how I manage to miss this salient fact but I did.  Maybe I was just so excited to get started.

  When my PPAC package arrived, I tore it open and spilled the contents onto my workbench.  I conditioned the clay by kneading, let me mention that PPAC is not as easy to condition as Premo, but not as hard as the original Fimo, so I had to work at it a bit.  I flattened out the clay by running it through my pasta machine at the thickest setting.  I added a few drops of alcohol inks and carefully folded the edges of the clay around it.  Well, I guess I wasn't careful enough.  When I started to squeeze the clay to mix it, ink shot out of the little square of clay and all over my shirt, my workbench and my hands!  It's a good thing my dog was on the other side of the room, otherwise he would have become know as Watermelon (the color I used first) rather than Finn!

Luckily, my clothes were the old ones I use for working and my workbench is so stained with all and sundry that a few more stains didn't matter.  My hands, on the other hand, were stained a lovely shade of pink for days!  An elderly woman at the market actually asked if that was a new fad when she saw my hands!   I learned my lesson after that and always use latex gloves when working with alcohol inks.  And one other thing I've found, the color is not easily discernible with PPAC  until you actually cure the clay.  I was trying to make an orangey red clay for some little turtles beads.  I mixed watermelon and butterscotch ink into the clay.  This is what it looks like before baking, a kind of peachy brown:

 

This is after baking.  I added a touch of gold mica powder mixed with translucent polymer clay and applied it to each segment of the turtle's shell.

I'd like to add that if you spread the ink on a slab of clay and let it dry, it's much easier to incorporate the color.  Less messy as well!