 Okay, now this was really weird the thought of just pouring this on here, but it's kind of cool too. I can't believe the intensity. It's gorgeous. Wow. It's been 24 hours and we're ready to reveal your piece. Oh my gosh. Hi guys, so today I am joined by artist Allison Reeves. Allison is a local artist who's come into resin with us. So Allison, would you like to tell everyone a little bit about yourself? My name is Allison Reeves. I am from Kitchener, Waterloo area and been an artist for pretty much my whole life. And acrylic art is been something I've been doing for about seven or eight years and the resin product is something I've always wanted to learn how to use. And your work is so beautiful and so colorful and Art Resin is going to make these colors pop. I think you're going to be really, really pleased with the results. Yeah, I'm really excited to see how this is going to look because I agree, I think it's going to make the colors pop even more. So yeah, I can't wait. Excellent. So let's get started. Okay, great. So the first step before you resin is to make sure that your work surface and all your tools are prepped. Resinning really should be the very last step in the process. So what we've got here is our work surface lined with plastic and if you'll notice all of our tools here are stands or mixing cups or mixing sticks, everything is plastic. The reason for that is epoxy resin doesn't stick to plastic so it makes clean up really, really, really simple. So we've got our torch ready to go. We have our level with paper towels. We've got tape for the back. We've got gloves. We have everything we need and of course our resin, everything we need here at hand, including our dust cover. This is really important. This is the last step in the process and the last thing you want to do is have to leave your wet resin to go look for a dust cover. So it's super important to keep this handy to protect your piece from dust while it's wet. Okay, so what we're going to do now is we're going to tape the back off. So Alison has painted this on a stretch canvas and she has carried the painting all the way around and wraps around to the sides and the top and the bottom. So we are going to resin all the sides and not dome it. But what we want to do is just apply some tape on the bottom and the reason for that is as the resin runs off drips are going to form along the bottom and if you have the tape there the next day you can rip the tape off and the drips are going to come along. It will be a nice clean edge. A nice clean edge. If you didn't tape and some artists don't but you're going to end up with drips, cure drips collected all the way around and then they need to be sanded off. So it's just one extra step that's avoided by taping. Okay, so we're going to tape first. We've got painter's tape here. Some artists like to use sheaving tape or tuck tape. This is painter's tape and the most important thing to remember is to use a good quality tape because lower quality painter's tape can absorb the resin. Okay, so I'll show you how I like to tape. So I like to cut off a big piece. It's a little bit longer than my side. Okay, I'll do one side and then I'll let you do the rest and then bring it up right to the edge. Burnish it down a little bit with my finger. Okay, it's right to the edge. There we go. And then I use my thumbnail and I just cut it on an angle like that. And of course, I mean, you can use an X-Acto knife or scissors as well to cut it, but I find this very easy. And then just rotate it and do the same all the way around. Okay, so there you go. Let me do the honors. I like the color. Usually this tape is green. That's right. This is my color. So on this edge, can I just butt it right up to like that? Yes, exactly. Cool. There you go, it's easy. Another step. I don't know if I've got it quite as well as you did it. I'm sure you did. Okay, and then you just keep going around? Yes. Perfect. Perfect. That looks great. So what we're going to do is pull the tape as soon as the resin is dry to the touch, definitely before the 24-hour mark, before the resin has had a chance to really cure and it's still soft and flyable. It just makes it much easier to pull the tape off. Okay, so 24 hours. Okay, got it. Yeah, before 24 hours. Okay. Now, because Allison painted on a canvas, it's always a good idea to reinforce the back. The reason being epoxy resin is very heavy and it can actually cause the canvas to sag. The resin might pool in the center and it could even like pull away from the edges and cause the fabric to sag a bit. So it's always best to err on the side of caution and just reinforce it at the back. So what we usually like to do is to get a piece of cardboard and we just measure the inside here and cut a piece of cardboard to size and then we just wedge it in here. And that just gives it some extra strength. Exactly, it gives it some stability. So if this was on a wood board canvas, you would not have to do this, obviously, right? Yes, that's one of the reasons that we do recommend resigning over a wood panel just because it does have that strength. It takes away that so you can see here it's it's flush, it's not, you can't tell it's on there. I'm guessing on like on a bigger piece like this, you for sure would need some reinforcement, right? Because that's even a bigger area to cover that would sag, okay. Yes, yeah, the weight is much greater. So yeah, so this is really easy to cut a piece of cardboard to size. You can do like crossbars if you want to as well. And yeah, I like this idea though, the one solid piece. Yes, I do too. It gives it strength. Okay, so next step now is we're going to put our painting on our stands. You can use little plastic cups. We sometimes use little plastic shot glasses as well or little Dixie cups. We even use Lego sometimes where these pyramid stands work very nicely. Yeah, so the reason for this is you don't want the resin to run off and then your piece to stick to the stick to your surface and then okay, I wondered about that. Okay, it'll pull at the bottom, then you've got like you need to cut it off and everything and then if you don't have a plastic line surface and your resin runs off, you could end up having your piece stuck to your table. Yeah, okay. So to avoid that, it's always best to prop it up. Okay, so we've gotten propped up now and next we want to make sure it's level. So we can use a level like this. That looks great. And if you have your phone, we also have a level app on artrezen.com. I just discovered that. Yes, so here we go and we just put it on and that looks good. And the reason why you want your piece level is because our resin self levels. So it's going to spread out by itself and as it dries, it's going to keep leveling out. So if your piece is slightly off kilter, you're going to end up having more resin running off. You'll have less on one side. Got it. Okay. Yeah, it could dry unevenly. So it's always best to make sure your piece is nice and level. Okay. Okay, so now we are ready to resin. So the first step is to figure out how much resin we're going to need. So this is a 12 by 12, right? Yeah. Okay, so we have on our website, we've got a handy resin calculator. So all you have to do is go to artrezen.com slash calculator and turn the length and the width of your piece and it will let you know exactly how much resin you need. So it works in inches or in centimeters. Brilliant. Okay, perfect. And it'll tell you exactly how much. So I did that earlier. 12 by 12 needs five ounces of resin. Okay. So what that means is five ounces total. So you want equal amounts of resin and hardener to total five ounces. Okay. So two and a half ounces of resin, two and a half ounces of hardener. Okay. If you mix the two together, okay. I didn't even know that. Okay. Right. I'm getting ahead of you. Okay. So we need five ounces of resin. So that means you could actually buy an eight ounce kit like this one here. We're going to resin a few pieces. So we've got a 16 ounce kit here in our water bath. Okay. So you're probably wondering why is that in the water bath. So it's fall here now and we're in Canada and the temperatures are starting to drop. An important thing to know about a boxy resin is that it loves warm temperatures. So you want to work in a room that's at least room temperature, even a little bit warmer is better. So 75 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit or 24 to 30 degrees Celsius is absolutely ideal to resin in. When it's really cold, we'll sometimes put a space heater in the room just to elevate the temperature a little bit. But another important thing to remember is you want to keep the temperature stable for the first 24 hours at least while it's curing. Okay. Because if the temperature fluctuates like if it dips, you could end up with little dimples in your resin. So warm temperatures and stable temperatures are important in your resning. Okay. So another few things to make note of in a water bath. The reason that we're doing this is that warmer resin is also easier to work with. It's got a bit of a thinner consistency. It gets rid of a lot of bubbles off the bat. So and again, we want to make sure our resin is not cold because of the temperature. Okay. So it's important to remember always to warm up your resin before you measure and mix. So we want to warm up the unopened bottles with the lids on. Okay. And you don't want any water getting into your resin or your partner because it might cure cloudy. And likewise, when you pull it out, you want to make sure those bottles are dried off thoroughly before you open the caps. Okay. And does it matter where these bottles sit otherwise? Like when you're not using them, they can just be on the shelf wherever and then you just take it to this point when you need it. Absolutely. And we've even tested, you can even have these freeze. You can even put them in the, you know, in really, really cold temperatures. Okay. As long as you bring it back to room temperature before you resin. Okay. So we'll dry off that one there. We'll dry it off for our hardener. And you might also notice too, the hardener has a white cap and the resin has a black cap. Okay. So it makes it really, really easy to tell which belongs to which. You want to make sure that you put the right cap back on the right bottle because if you put the hardener bottle back on the resin and eat residue that's left in the cap is going to react and they're going to cure and you won't be able to get your cap off. All right. So really important tip. Okay. So I'll just get rid of this here. Okay. So now we are ready to resin. So we need five ounces. So that's two and a half ounces of hardener and two and a half ounces of five total. Okay. So two and a half, two and a half. Okay. Yeah. It's a one to one ratio. Okay. So you have a couple of choices here when you're measuring. You can use a measuring cup like this that has lines on it or some people like to use cups like this and we use the sort of lines in the cup to measure and then you can eyeball. You can either mix your, put your resin in one, your hardener in another and then pour them into a separate third container or you can pour your resin into your hardener. Okay. So okay. So for ease of use we are going to just use this one here. Now it doesn't matter if you start with your resin or you start with your hardener first as long as you keep that one to one ratio. Okay. Okay. So I'm going to give these to you. First things first is gloves. Okay. Resin is very sticky. So you want to make sure that you're wearing gloves. Here we go. Okay. And like I said, it doesn't matter if you start with resin or you start with hardener first because oh it's like like honey. It is. It's got a beautiful consistency. It's a two and a half. It might actually get better if you leave it on a flat surface. Okay. So I just come down to its level. Exactly. That's what I do. All right. And then so I go up to five. You can see what a beautiful consistency it has and because we put it in that water bath so that it's very, very clear and you did it absolutely perfectly during one at a time and that way you know for sure you're not mixing two parts of hardener or two parts of resin. Okay. So that's what I like to do. Keeps you organized. Exactly. Yeah. Just pour one bottle at a time. Put the cap back on side to side and you know you've got that hardener taken care of and then you move on to the resin or vice versa. Okay. Now this was really weird. The thought of just pouring this on here but it's kind of cool too. Yeah. So here's our mixing stick. Okay. Okay. So again it's a plastic for easy cleanup and what you want to do is mix it for three minutes. Okay. So I'm going to set the timer on my phone here. Okay. Or you can put on your favorite song. I will not sing for you and I'm just stirring. You are going to stir for three minutes. Okay. You got the right idea. You want to do it slowly. You don't want to whip it because that'll just add more bubbles. Okay. I wondered about that. Yes. Just get a bubble thing going on. So as long as you measure accurately, one to one by volume. Okay. And as long as you mix thoroughly for three minutes and you scrape the sides and you scrape the bottom of your container and you resin in a room temperature or warmer, those are probably the most important things to remember. And I love that there's no smell to it. Right. Some of my paints have a bit of a fumes and that I can't handle and this is, I'm loving this. Oh, that's amazing. That there's no smell. Definitely something I would love using. Oh, perfect. Yeah. It really does take resigning your art to a whole new like opens up new doors. You can resin at home. You can resin in the studio without having to worry about stinking the place out. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I have to do this for at least three minutes. Is it okay if I go over the three-minute time frame? Yes. That's cool. Yes, absolutely. You can't really over stir. You can under stir. Okay. And it's that your resin won't cure properly if you don't mix it for at least three minutes. Okay. But over stirring really isn't a problem. The thing to keep in mind is that you've got about 40 minutes of working time. Now, an important thing to note about that because we did put our resin in a water bath that does shorten our working time by about 10 minutes or so. Oh, okay. So still we have half an hour to spread this resin. Okay. So it's a kind of a time sensitive thing, but you just have to be organized? It is. So what's going to happen is the resin is going to start to thicken. It's starting to catalyze now. Yeah, I can feel that. Yeah, it's going to start to thicken more and more and more. And by the time you get to about 40 minutes, it's going to be too thick to spread any more. Okay. Good. So we have hit the three minute mark. Okay. So now we're ready to pour. This is the fun part. Are you ready? Yeah. So what do I do? I just let this drip or do I get like half a cup? So you can just put on your on the work surface. This is plastic line, so we don't have to worry about it and we're going to address that. As soon as we're done pouring, we'll take care of cleaning up the tool. So I'll explain how you do that. Okay. So our piece is ready to go. So I'm going to do this? You're going to pour. Okay, I'm ready. You got this. And we've got our spreader here. This is Art Resin's Jagged Spreader. It comes in really handy for just spreading your piece evenly. Okay. So do I start in the center? You can. So because I would or you... Whatever you prefer. You can start in the center and then spread it out. Am I emptying this whole thing at one time? You're emptying it. And then working with that? Yes. I'm guessing it's not going to make the paint run, but it feels like when you pour something like this over, it's going to make the colors do something to the color. I don't know. Yeah, I'm guessing no. I'm sure no, but... For sure. And I can understand that fear. You know, you put all this work into beautiful painting and I can understand the worry, but no, the paint is not going to bleed at all. It's just going to stay as is. It's going to stay as is and you will see immediately what a beautiful effect it has. Now because this is acrylic paint, you can just pour it right on. You don't need any kind of sealant. The only time you might want to test first, just so you know exactly what results to expect is if you were resining over paper. Because sometimes paper, softer or lesser quality papers like construction paper, for example, or newsprint, because they're so soft and porous they can absorb the resin. I didn't even know you could do that over something like that. You can use our resin over paintings, over paper photographs as well, all sorts of different applications. But paper you might want to test first and if it looks like it's going to absorb the resin, you'd want to use a sealant first. But we always advise testing beforehand just to make sure that you know exactly what to expect. Okay. Okay. Okay, I can do this. You got this. All right. Slowly or? I would pour slowly and I would pour close to exactly as you're doing close to the surface. It's all just to reduce bubbles. Oh my god. See, look at it. Beautiful and you're going to pour that whole thing in. Okay, so is this speed okay? Yeah. Why is it okay? Because we're going to let it run over the sides, right? So that's just like a circle going on there. This is so cool. One thing we're not going to do, you know how you scraped when you're mixing? We're not going to scrape as we're pouring. Would that create bubbles? The reason is just in case there was unmixed resin or hardener stuck to the sides, we don't want to scrape that out. Okay. So we're perfectly mixed. Okay. Resin and hardener. Okay, so that's probably good. Always be safe. That is beautiful. Perfect. There we go. Okay. So now if we were just to walk away and leave this, the art resin would see how it's traveling. It would just keep leveling out. But what we're going to do is take our spreader and we're just going to give it a hand and guide it exactly where we want to go. Okay, and then not like I don't want to touch the canvas I'm guessing. I just have to stay. I wouldn't apply like a lot of a lot of pressure but just to guide guide the resin. There you go. Perfect. This is perfect. This is beautiful. Yeah, it looks good. Okay, it feels really weird like letting it drip. Yeah, yeah, we'll take care of the edges afterwards. With the gloss. Oh my gosh. Okay, I'm sold already. Yeah. So I have no idea what to do about the edges. Okay. How does this happen? All right, so what you're going to do is take your spreader and with one hand just pull some resin off and let it run over the side. With the scraper though, right? With the scraper. With the spreader and then at the same time you're going to take your gloved hand and you're just going to smooth it so that the sides are covered. So you don't want to pull too too much off but. No, yeah, I can feel that you don't want to lose too much off the top. Okay, just let it run over the side and you'll feel if you've got it. I'll probably get better at this as I go, right? Yeah, absolutely. So you're never going to have as thick a coating on the sides as you will on the top, right? Because gravity is going to pull any excess resin down and create those drips. Okay. But you do want to make sure it is covered. It's going to have to be thinner on the side. Yeah, because it has to have the same gloss look, right? Right, exactly. You know what I do sometimes too is I grab some of the drips down there. Oh, I wondered, I was thinking of doing that. Okay, that's cool to do that. Yeah, for sure. On our work surface. Okay, cool. Yeah, I need to make sure the edges are all evenly covered. Okay, got it. Not you doing great. I can't believe the intensity, it's like. Of the colors? Oh my god, it's like 1000% brighter, more intense or something. Yeah, it really saturates the color. It does, it's gorgeous. Okay, so hopefully it's fun. I like, yeah, it's just something different and I love the outcome of this. It's just like, wow. Just wait until you torch now. You're going to love torching, that's my favorite part. Yeah, I don't think I want to sell this piece now. Okay, and now we need the torch. Okay, so for a piece like this, this is a great size. This is our artist's torch. It's a butane powered torch. Some people like to use a heat gun, but really here at our resin, we always use torches because nothing really beats the intensity of a flame for getting rid of bubbles. Okay, it's really, really, really effective. Okay, now that part scares me. The flame. Right, I can imagine, but it's honestly, once you see it in action, you'll never, you'll never go back. For really, really large canvases, you can use a propane torch as well, but for a piece like this, this butane torch is perfect. Okay. Okay, so I'll turn it on for you. Okay, so we'll just start it. Okay, and you can adjust the flame here if you want to get it more intense or you want to get it a little bit lower. And the idea is you want to hold it over your piece and you'll be able to see the bubbles start to disappear. Just like you're ironing clothes, you want to keep it in motion at all times. You don't want to hold it in one spot for too long and you don't want to hold it too close to your resin because you don't want to burn it. Wow, it's not easy. And that is it. What do you think? That looks great. Good. So now the last step is to look in the light to see if there's any bits of dust or hair or bubbles that we missed. Okay, so it helps to have a light source. We've got a nice beautiful window here and it helps to get down kind of eye level and then you can really see if there and I see the bubble here. You see that? So we always keep toothpicks on hand and just like that. Oh my gosh. That's it. That looks fantastic. Perfect. So now what we're going to do is cover it because this is important. We do not want any dust to land in our wet resin. Okay, so we like to use plastic toast like this. You can use cardboard box as well if the flap's cut off. Okay. But we like these toasts. And that's it. That is a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. Isn't it? Yes. I know it's very, it can be intimidating but it's actually such a simple process. Really measure, mix, pour, spread, torch, cover, wait, and in 24 hours we're going to have a beautiful hard finish. That's great. Thank you so much. You are so welcome. Thank you so much for coming. I'm very excited about this product and yeah, using it on some other ones. Good. So will you come back tomorrow and look at the review? Oh definitely. Okay. Excellent. Can't wait. All right. We'll see you tomorrow. All right. We are back and Allison, it's been 24 hours and we're ready to reveal your piece which is always the most fun part. Ready? I'm ready. Okay. So let's take the cover off. What do you think? Oh my gosh. It's beautiful. My gosh. I mean your paintings are so beautiful and colorful. Yes, you can. It's dry to the touch. Okay. I do not think my colors could become that more intense. Like it is. Yeah. It is gorgeous. Oh my gosh. Beautiful. So at 24 hours your piece is dry to the touch here so we can pick it up and nail it. I love it. It feels like a piece of stained glass or something. It does. It's so intense. So the next step now is to peel off the tape. So now at the 24 hour mark you can go ahead and hang this on your wall if you want to because it's dry to the touch. I love it. Oh good. I'm so glad. Now it still has to finish curing though. 72 hours is a full cure so if you actually wanted to send this out like ship it out to a client we always advise waiting 72 hours until it's fully, fully cured. If you sent it out now even though it seems dry to the touch it would be okay. It's still prone to like indents and things like that so find to hang on the wall at 24 hours if you want to ship it. Wait the full 72 hours. Sounds good. Oh my gosh. I don't know. I mean speechless because I did yeah. So when you first came you felt a little bit nervous to resin. You weren't quite sure how do you feel now? I'm like so excited to know how to do this now and I'm like it's something I'm going to have in my future that I'm going to do with my pieces for sure. Yeah so you can see yourself resigning stuff now on your own. I always love the look so I'm really grateful for this opportunity that you've taught me how to do this. It's just beautiful. Yeah it's pretty easy right? It's exactly what I was hoping it would be and yeah thank you so much. Oh you are so welcome. Thank you. Thank you for coming to spend the time with us. I loved having you here. It was great. It was great. Awesome. I'll teach my daughters how to do this. There we go. Start a whole spread of love right? Awesome. Well thank you so much and we'll see you next time. Thank you.