Guest Author - Michele G. Desmoulins
Some of you may be familiar with resin used to glue items together for jewelry. However, it can and often is, used in mixed media and paper art mediums. Once the resin has dried, the paper will look translucent and shiny. The resin is nontoxic and will not curl the paper.
Here are some tips for making resin paper. Preparing your resin is a two-step process. You’ll need to mix the resin and the hardener together thoroughly before using it. Keep in mind that you will need to throw away everything you used to mix the resin including, the brush or sponge you used to apply it and the gloves you wore.
Place a plastic garbage bag on the surface you will be working on. Put the papers that you will be covering with resin, on top of it. Make sure you can leave the papers on this plastic overnight without moving it. Then just mix the resin and hardener together with a wooden stick and apply it to the paper with a small sponge or sponge brush.
Make sure the paper is covered with the resin evenly and thoroughly. Your paper will be permanently preserved with this technique. This technique will prevent yellowing and the drying and crumbling of your paper over time.
Resin paper is also great for using in your mixed media and collage work. You can stamp designs on sheets of paper from a book before applying the resin, to give your artwork more depth.
If you like, you can rip the resin papers up and add pieces to your art. The paper needs to dry for at least 6-10 hours before you can begin to work with it, however, it will take 3 days for to be fully cured.
To prevent bubbles in your resin make sure the product sits at room temperature or above before using it then let it sit after mixing. Once you've mixed it, it should be applied within an hour or it will start to harden.
If the resin does get too cold, put the container in hot water for about half an hour or until the resin has no bubbles and is runny again. Resin should remain clear as well. If there is a bit of yellowing it is probably because too much hardener was used.
To create even greater depth in your art, you can color the resin before applying it to the paper and add glitter too.
Resin paper is waterproof. If you want to resin photographs, you need to cover them with some plastic coating first or they will become translucent and/or gray. Clear packing tape can be used for this purpose.
Experiment with this techniques for interesting and unusual art and then please let us know about your experience by posting in the forum or sending an email.
