[Katherine Swift]

This question comes from Randy:

I have been following you on Facebook and enjoy the information you pass along! I have been trying to solve a particular challenge and am hoping you can shed some light. I see in some art that colors appear to be held as blobs, not mixing with colors around them. They stay in small pools or spheres and don’t disperse into the resin surrounding them. I am not sure if they are using 2 different solvents that repel each other or that something else is going on. I have attached an image that shows the effect I am trying to achieve. I plan to use it very differently but want to be able to control the colors as pools that don’t blend together as they are placed onto the surface. Make sense? I also believe that this is all using alcohol and or water based inks.

[Katherine Swift]

Hi Randy,

I have not done anything like this, however, here’s how I would go about trying to attempt it.

The small turquoise dots in the center on top of the green dots lead me to believe that this was done in several layers. Otherwise, I would have expected those colors to mix if they had both been poured at the same time.

To me, it looks like this painting was done in 3 or 4 layers. If I were to do it, I would start with the back layer, which in this case, looks like a turquoise layer with cells. For the next layers, I would blob on my colors, then let them partially to completely cure, then fill in with a clear resin. Let the clear resin cure, then add another layer.

This artist is very talented in that s/he got the blobs to look perfect. Obviously there was a lot of time and practice put into this and do wonder what if any solvents were used. There does appear to be a repelling action. I could possibly imagine where colors with solvent were applied to areas, allowed to cure, then excess solvent wiped away (in the case of oil based products) or allowed to evaporate.

I would love to hear other resin artist thoughts on this too.

[Author]

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