A sunset and studio fun...(As of 5:00 pm)

Oh, last night was just beautiful outside the treehouse.

And today is raining but we walked anyway, brave Dandy slogging along, ears down, looking sort of pissed and grumpy.  And Bode, laughing, charging through puddles and into any dirty, muddy patches he can find, a true working dog.

I'm starting some studio work again, got most of it cleaned up and have been wasting metal for a few days.  Sometimes I just have to sit down and tinker a bit, which means a pile of ruined sheet silver and a twisted pile of wire.  It's all reclaimable but costs money.  I could play with some copper but it doesn't feel the same.

Instead I'm going to do some resin work, this is a piece I made to donate to an art auction.  It's called "I've Been Everywhere", has maps on the front and the words to the Johnny Cash song on the back.  It might be posted here someplace but maybe not.

Here's my beginning pile of goodies.  I look for old books, this is a book of Poetry Erotica and who the hell knows just what they're saying.  It pains me to destroy books so I look for torn up, moldy, musty books, those almost ready for the trash, makes me feel a little better.

More later, got to run some errands....

I use Ice Resin, which is a product I learned about from Susan Lenart Kazmer, an incredible artist.  Find it by searching her name or objectsandelements.com.  I'm doing the preliminary pours for some jewelry and some sentimental ornaments I like to make.  I've copied some pics onto parchment paper, collected various things like plastic bags to protect the table, sponges, and the stir sticks and cups that come with the Ice Resin.

I've got a gram scale, helps to keep the proportions of the resin exactly equal.  You can also eyeball it.

There is a ton of info out there on Ice Resin so I'll keep it simple.  Mix it up, stir it for several minutes, let it sit for five minutes, pour.

I poured a couple of batches to check my ink for colorfastness, these will dry to tacky by tomorrow and then I'll be able to think about the next step.  This pic is sort of blurry, probably had my camera set on close up, oops.

Peace