polymer clay and cast resin art
I have some new lariat style necklaces for sale on etsy. They’re made of Lumina polymer clay, nylon-coated stainless steel beading wire, and various glass beads and pearls.
This a new technique I came up with. As far as I know no one else has tried it before, so I’m excited about it. I’m very happy with the durability of the clay and wire combination. Continue reading ‘new necklaces for sale!’
I recently found Smooth-On resin, which works very well. Since it is fairly clear, I’m able to add dye and metallic powders to make a variety of different colors. It took some experimentation, but I am very happy with the results. When sanded and coated with a glossy finish, the finished product looks like it is made of candy 
The semi transparency added a lot of depth and made them more like tiny sculptures instead of toys. I appreciated not having to paint them because the slight differences in the grain of the metallic powder, and color gave them each more personality.
Each of these creatures is from an old, much loved Super Nintendo game called EarthBound ( also known as Mother 1, 2, and 3).
Here are various Starmen:
And here are some Mr. Saturns:
I used a matte finish on the Mr. Saturns to make them softer. The whiskers are made of stainless steel beading wire that I coated in Lumina, so they’re flexible like real whiskers. The bows on top were made of Sculpey SuperFlex.
Last month I bought some resin from MrArt.com. I looked through the reviews and settled on Environmental Tech Castin’ Craft Clear Casting Resin because it had a perfect 5 star score and a lot of favorable comments. I expected the best, but what I got was less than sub par.
They sent me a really old can (resin has a shelf life of 6 months at best). The top inch or so was completely solidified, rendering the product unusable. After I sent it back, I recieved a second container that looked promising enough.
I followed the directions and added the necessary number of drops of catalyst for my casting (which was difficult to determine due to confusing directions) and after several days the cast still had not set up completely and was too sticky to handle. I even experimented with adding more and less catalyst and it still refused to harden. I was unable to produce any usable castings after about 6 tries.
I really have no way of knowing if this was another old can of resin, or if the product was really that bad.
I did manage to find a product that I’m happy with. The silicone mold making compound and resin from IllusEffects Studios works great. The directions were easy to follow, the mold and castings turned out perfectly, and I will buy from them again. Thanks!
Since I was somewhat recently introduced to Lumina Clay, I’ve been experimenting with flowers, but I hope to start working with other subjects as I become more familiar with the clay. Looking through my older work at camillecampos.com has inspired me to vary my work more.
I’ve started combining the strengths of different materials to better translate my ideas into my art. For example, Lumina is durable and flexible when thin, but Sculpy can create such interesting effects and lends itself better to sculpture. Resin is my third material of choice and as it is very strong, may be painted, sanded, and used along with a mold.
Here is a necklace I’ve just finished. I’m not sure if I’m entirely happy with how it came out, but it was a valuable experiment.
Here are the original paper clay pieces. It was a little tricky setting these up to be made into a necklace, because I couldn’t test it out as a whole until I cast it in resin as the original pieces were too delicate.
I’m currently creating 22 resin figures. I’m still learning as I go, but I hope to do more molding and casting in the future.
I started out with this paper clay sculpture of a StarmanDX, a character from a Super Nintendo game called Earthbound. I made it a few years ago and cast a bunch of duplicates in resin. I’m using the same original again, but I’ll be making a few alterations later for a different final product.
The first step was to put my original in a box and encase half of it in modeling clay. The clay allows me to make one side of this two part mold at a time.
Here’s a video demonstrating the flexibility of one of my necklaces:
Here are some tiny clay flowers ready to be made into a necklace. I usually make all the pieces before assembling them. Lumina Clay works best for my jewelry because it’s flexible, waterproof, and becomes like plastic when dry. The clay only comes in transparent white, which is great because I like to have complete control over the color scheme. Acrylic paint mixes in nicely and creates vibrant colors. Here’s a closeup of the finished product:
The leaves are imprints of actual leaves, in this case, from a climbing fig. The fig leaves work well because they have very defined veins.
This necklace was great fun to make. The color palate includes some of my favorite colors.
