Fun with Making Molds and Casting

Since taking some workshops To Bead True Blue in Tucson with Linda Lenart McNulty, see her website here, I have been continuing to explore making molds with silicone clay (jeweler's putty) and casting with ICE resin.  On my drive back to Phoenix after the workshop, I stopped at Trader Joe's to get a salad for lunch.  The salad had some cute little grape tomatoes, so I saved three of them to make molds! 

Today I found a nice 3D citrus leaf and made a mold of it, as well as from a seedpod I found on a bush by the mall.

 



I have previously made self - hardening clay sculptures of prehistoric female spirit figures, and made molds of them.  I tried making 2 part molds, something Linda described in the class but we didn't have time to do.  You first make a partial mold with the jewelers putty, let it harden, then I sprayed it with Pam and made the second piece that fit over the first and made a tight seal, leaving a space to pour in resin.



To add local color to my work, I tried mixing some finely ground Arizona dirt into the ICE resin before I poured it. I was really pleased with how well it remained suspended in the resin mixture.

I didn't have oil paints to use for coloring the resin, so used some watercolor blocks.  Interestingly, the watercolor droplets floated in the ICE resin, which is some kind of oil substance, I believe.  The suspension of green and orange created a pale colored resin, as you can see.  I'm looking forward to seeing the effect when the resin hardens.  Here are several filled molds.

 

 

I added words, "Grow" "seeds of" self love" to the seed pod mold after I filled it with resin, as you can see below, if you click on the image.

 

Last, I embellished two previously cast resin pieces with ICE enamels.  I used ModPodge to adhere the enamel grains to the cast piece, then heated them with a small heat gun.  It worked, and the enamels melted onto the surface.  The resin pieces became soft and pliable when heated, but got hard again when they cooled.  I also bought some Swellegant metal coatings for polymer clay that I want to try on my ICE resin pieces, so stay tuned!