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If you prefer a satin finish over flower power petal stampings, then skip the resin and just do several light coats of matter spray lacquer over your layered/rivetted composition. Paint the petals first, then stack, then rivet, then lacquer. Several layers of cured lacquer is good, to prevent the paint from chipping back.
Check out the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8I3br4l164
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Chelsea had set up the photo for our website at http://www.bsueboutiques.com so it was HUGE for the last post. Also, the color looks a little washed out. In person it is SO vibrant. I featured it in part two of my colorization videos series, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8I3br4l164
Check it out!
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Whee doggies! Rich color with alcohol ink, set with an embossing gun. Then I have sealed with MATTE acrylic spray lacquer. I let that cure for a good 12 hours this time, as I don't think I was letting the paint and lacquer cure long enough. Then I mixed Ice Resin and swabbed it on with a sponge painter. To that I drifted in Prisma glitter and a little bit of vintage German Glass glitter.
FLOWER POWER!
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Rob and I spent the afternoon in my workshop making a YouTube video to show you how I colorize brass stampings....in particular, flower-power type stampings. There are alot of instruction elements involved: not only do I show you how I paint them, but also how I assemble them, rivet them together and lacquer them with ICE Resin, to give them that shimmering old-enamel look. It's easy! Check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDSn8fB-S-s&feature=youtu.be&a
I'm not crazy about the video but the basic info is totally there, and the yak is definitely my style of teaching and telling. Hang in there, the more we make the better we'll get.
Shel said the hardest thing was that you couldn't really see how fab the components were, once assembled and coated with resin, but that's no big deal! I've got closeups. Let me know what you think!
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Playing around with ICE resin and made myself some cool Steampunk earrings:
The one's a little rough at the edge, that's just cleanup. If you bump resin it can spill over a little, or if you pour too much. Still thought they were worth showing, for the concept. I used Tim Holtz gears in the cup, and I added our raw brass propellers. As you can see, I drilled the resin and through the bezel and tube-rivetted it, after it had cured. What a bunch of fun.
If you need bezels, these are our 30mm low-walled jobbies and we have beaucoups of them at the website in the bezels section. http://www.bsueboutiques.com
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OOOOH I am so excited! Our first shipment of ICE Resin has arrived.
I first got to use it when I took Susan Lenhart Kazmer's class at Art and Soul. Below are a few of my projects from the class.
I've played around with resin off and on for about 20 years but was never much of a fan. I hated those drat bubbles----always blowing on them, getting out the hair dryer, poking them or dragging them to the edge. AND, most of the stuff out there was TOXIC, so whoa, I'm not liking that, either.
Susan developed ICE brand resin about ten years ago and now it's being marketed. It is NON TOXIC, does not yellow and bubbles are few if you mix it carefully. It domes beautifully and you can use it to do so many different things.....as you can see here, I made Steampunk bezels!
It cures fully in three days but these pieces set up overnight and by the end of the day, I was able to drill a few of the bezels I'd filled with great success, and set them with tube rivets.
You'll find ICE resin featured on the front page of our website at http://www.bsueboutiques.com. The it includes the resin, the hardener, cups, stirrers and nozzles. You're gonna LOVE LOVE LOVE this stuff!
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There's been any amount of commentary by some---even trained metal artists!--that it's difficult or impossible to get patina on raw brass using Liver of Sulfur.
YOU CAN DO IT. I do it all the time. I sorta-kinda prefer my vinegar/salt thing because it has a deepness and rich old gingerbread look that you don't get with Liver of Sulfur. But! You can get that cool toasty eco-friendly sorta natural-type look on your brass using this material. The method takes longer than copper or silver which you just dip-dunk-and done! but, it's EASY. There are just a few tips you need to know to have success on brass using this method.
Liver of Sulfur is the least-noxious, chemical way to get patina on a piece of brass. The down side is it takes a little longer to respond to the solution, and Liver of Sulfur smells like rotten eggs, ugh. So long as you don’t hang over the bowl and breath deep, or have severe allergies, you will be fine using it, if you want to give it a try.
Heat water to almost hot and then place it in a glass dish on a candle warmer to keep the heat up. Then put in a couple little chunks of dry liver of sulfur. If you need some, we sell both it and the gel type on our website at http://www.bsueboutiques.com My guess is you may even have some in your workshop already!
Also, take the clean, degreased brass pieces and heat the brass piece or stamping gently, holding with pliers or a sturdy pair tweezers into the heat of an EMBOSSING GUN, just like you use with UTEE or ink for mixed media and scrapbooking art.
Then throw it in the solution. You should also have a glass bowl full of clear cool water ready to dunk/neutralize the pieces you take out of the solution.
Check it in a few minutes, then dip in the cool water. If you like it, you are done. If not, put it back in the solution and go back and forth til it pleases you.
If you want to add more grunge to it, you can actually take it and hold it in the flame of a torch after that and get some deepening to it. This method works super on copper, too. We did it in Linda and Opie O'Brien's class at Art and Soul. (BTW you can get more patina recipes in their book Metal Craft Discovery Workshop, published by Northern Light Books in 2005. It's on my top-ten all time favorite books for jewelry craft....you may have to search for it, though, as it's out of print now. Contact me if you want one, I don't have any to sell but I can put you in touch with them. THAT BOOK, if you don't have it, IS SOMETHING YOU WANT, believe me.)
LISSEN UP: when liver of sulfur solution loses its strength, it gets real, real murky and cloudy. Throw it out and start a new batch. It is safe to put down the drain, as opposed to other chemical dips that require special containers and disposal.
Dry the piece, buff it out if you want to add in a few highlights, then seal with Renaissance Wax (that's the best choice---we have it at bsueboutiques.com) or Turtle Wax from the dollar store, or matte spray varnish. If you have really torched the piece hard, you may not have to seal it all! but you will need to experiment with that and see where you end up. You can also go ahead and ‘pop’ it with alcohol ink.
For more visuals and examples, check my website at http://www.bsueboutiques.com or my gallery at http://imageevent.com/bsue/galleryofpatinadesignsandideas
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