 Joanne from Art Resin here and today I'm joined by artist Sue Bord and I first came across Sue as part of our amazing artist compilation series and immediately fell in love with her beautiful jewelry. So I contacted her and Sue I'm so excited that you agreed to come in to work with us. I'm so excited too. Excellent. So Sue primarily works with alcohol ink and art resin to make her jewelry so what are we gonna be working on today? We're gonna be making one of my cuffs. It is created with copper, alcohol ink and of course art resin. Excellent. Well should we get started? Sounds good. Okay so we're gonna get started on one of your cuffs here so I see we've got these beautiful copper strips here as the base. Yes so I work about 90% on copper. Love working with the material. I actually cut these blanks myself but you can purchase them online or at a local craft store and the copper you find is flexible enough that you can bend it into a cuff shape. Right because copper is a soft metal so it is actually very flexible. It would be different if you were working with steel which is rock hard. Copper is known to be classified as a soft metal so it's got some malleability and it's easily bent. Amazing. And can you apply the alcohol ink now directly onto the copper? You can but what I do is I prime them and I have one down here so I prime them so that they're actually white which gives them the effect of if you were painting on muppo paper so that the colors are really bright and crisp and colorful. If you paint directly onto the copper you get a little more translucent and the colors aren't as bold and as popping as some people would like. Great so you've got options then. You have options yes. Okay so after you prime your pieces you let the primer dry for how long? I let the primer dry for about three hours. It says normally that you can do it for about an hour but I always leave it a little bit longer because the alcohol ink can tend to absorb into the primer and you don't want that to happen. You want the alcohol ink to be sitting on top of the primer. Great so after they've dried what's our next step? We get to paint. Excellent that's a fun part. So before we get started painting maybe you can explain what all your supplies are and what you like to use and why. Okay so well first off got to have some good alcohol ink and our resin creates some really amazing base colors. At home I have about 75 to 100 different colors of alcohol ink some of which came directly out of a bottle but some of which I actually paint and create myself. Next of course I've got the paint brushes. Some people apply ink just by dropping it on. I am in love with painting it on. Because I'm using paint brushes I need to use these little paint pots. You can get these paint pots at any craft store and then it also keeps it airtight so that I'm not wasting the ink and this way it'll last for at least 24 hours in one of these pots and then you just add a little bit more to reanimate the color. And this also allows you to custom blend I guess colors. Right so as you see here I've got a lot of colors some of them have been custom blended by me. What I do suggest is if you are making your own colors you have a pad of paper and write down how many drops of each paint you're actually putting in to make that color because if not you can create this beautiful color and not know how to reproduce it. That's great I see how organized you are and everything's labeled I love that. Yeah and now I'm so intrigued by this setup here that you've got it's sticky you've got your cuff laid on here so can you explain to me how you came about? Well by accident now I use artist boards just because they're small and they they're workable for me. But what happened was I went oh this is a really great color and this ended up upside down on my carpet underneath my desk so I had a very beautiful print of my bracelet design on the carpet and it's still there today. So what I do is I actually get some painters tape just take a little bit and I make sure that it's going the sticky side is up put it down and then place my bracelet in the middle no more on the floor. That is brilliant so it keeps it in place for you. It does I love painters tape so that's the process and then we finally get to where we're gonna be picking up a paintbrush mix in some colors I have a little bit of cleaner in here so this is just ink cleaner so you use it for stamps if you're stamping you need to wipe off the color this is the kind of cleaner I use it's nothing special you can just get it in any craft store so. Alright so should we get started? Let's start. I love that your color palette the blues and the purples that's my favorite. Yeah and there and that's why even if you're wanting to use like just blues and then want to throw a hint of purple in always remembering that blue and red make purple so that's why it's a complementary color and it doesn't it would not just stand out like a sore thumb. So I start always with the darkest color first that's just my go-to mostly it's because I've realized that if you paint the lighter color when you're finally painting the darker color at the end you've covered up all the lighter color so I start with what I'm wanting to be in my focal point okay so great let's get going all right crack open a little blue this is the fun part where we start so I actually when I'm working usually try and paint two bracelets at the same time that way I'm usually using the same colors I'm a circle and square and rectangle kind of person I like to do a lot of geometric shapes and so this one down here I'm gonna start by just figuring out just got to go for it so I'm gonna paint all my circles in this color first this is gonna be the darkest shade that I'll probably use and they're not always just little dots and you're right look at how rich that color is how saturated it is against that white it really really does look like you're painting on your paper it does mm-hmm but you can see I just make like start out with a few few little dots and that's the basis of the start of my design so you keep your brush cleaner close by so between each color you each color I clean even if I'm using the same color once I'm done I'm gonna because I'm gonna start with this design now I don't want the ink to be really thick and as alcohol ink dries it starts to become more of a paste because the alcohol is actually evaporating and you end up with a paste so right now I'm wanting it to be really fluid so we're gonna start up this one and I'm feeling the world of rectangles today and it doesn't have to be perfect you've got such a wide variety of brushes there to use different brushes for different effects and or do you have a favorite brush that you use it depends on if I'm wanting to do a fine line or a thick line I do have favorite paint brushes and I hate to see them when they finally end up going all right so let's get into some other colors again I'm going with the darker colors first this may look like black but it's not I actually don't paint with black only because for me I find that it eats into all the other colors so if I'm painting something that's blue I will use a really really dark color of blue to make it look like it might be possibly be black right you find that black kind of steals the show a little bit I do I find that black contend to take over mm-hmm now you can see when I'm painting like the colors blend it's not as clean as the other color is and it doesn't matter it's like whatever works well together mm-hmm and I guess you can make the design as simple or as detailed as you as you like right exactly it's it's up to you and how much time you want to actually spend spend painting on it sometimes I actually walk away from a piece and let it dry because once the ink's dry it then gives me the ability to come back and change it a little bit add some more color to it take a little bit color away blend the colors more so that the lines aren't as defined as I'm doing now if you find that it's just not you're not feeling it can you just wipe it down with alcohol and start fresh you can but because you prime it you can't use a lot of alcohol to wipe it down it has to be a really quick white and you're still going to end up with the colors that you were starting to originally paint with as the as the base because if you use alcohol on a primer it will actually start to take the primer away and then you just have to start from scratch again which means that you need to clean the piece up then reprim it so I just tried and usually work with my mistakes and there are no mistakes no it's all it's nope there aren't but I sometimes you may not like exactly what you've created but you know somebody does everyone appreciates it but so do you find that you cover the entire surface and don't leave any white showing or do you sometimes use that that white base as part of your design no all my I paint a hundred percent I have I never leave the white and if it is if I do have a little bit of white showing which I probably will at the end with all the circles and the rectangles I'll end up actually just blending a lighter color in just to cover it up so do you have like a you know sort of a preconceived notion of what what you want it to look like or you know like how do you know what what the next step is it's all about how I feel that day and I never set up to say okay this one's going to be I'm gonna have just blue blue like the rectangles going in specific places it's the same as the circles I try not to have like a purple circle beside a purple dot but I have no idea when I sit down exactly what's gonna turn up it just sort of happens it just happens it is and it's the way the colors feel you know I may realize that I need to have a little more of a teal color over here because it's too dark so you don't need to be perfect it almost has like a stained glass kind of look to it I get I get asked at shows if it's glass oh is that right yeah because people they do they see stained glass they see a lot of things in my jewelry and the depth to which I'm really excited once we get to the next stage how you see how working with resin and the inks my jewelry comes to life because you can see it's very dull the paint dries and it seems to lose that wet paint effect you know when we paint a wall at home the paint always looks different when it's wet then when it dries well the same thing is with this the colors dry lighter and they have a muted tone to them once we get to the next stage you'll see that all changes yeah I can see how people would think that once the art resin is on and it gives it that beautiful glassy look that they might think it's glass yeah so basically all I'm doing is just following the shapes of the original circles that I created it's not always it's not always perfect it doesn't have to be so as I said before if I don't want to be painting a specific color in the white I just sort of blend the colors beside so again I'm using a lighter color of blue just to drag the colors from the circle but not losing the shape of the circle and we're done so they look amazing I love how they turned out and I love that you were able to create two different bracelets two different looks but using the same ink and you did at the same time thanks yeah thanks you're welcome so beautifully done now we let them dry right so the next step before we resin is to let them dry so how long would you advise letting them dry for I would normally let these dry if you want in if you've got about six to eight hours to let them dry it's because you don't want the inks to move or smudge or anything when you apply the art resin but I would definitely leave them for at least six hours alright so we'll let these guys dry and then we're gonna be back to resin so Sue makes these beautiful cuffs but you also make lots of other jewelry necklaces and earrings do you want to tell us a little bit more about these necklaces here well right now I brought a couple of my new designs these are my half moon three-dimensional necklaces and I create earrings necklaces bracelets other designs and but everything that I create has a hand-painted component in it so even if it's a charm bracelet it's got a hand-painted charm that I've done so that's part of my thing is I always want to make sure that there is one hand painted component in each piece of my jewelry so these truly are hand-crafted 100% from start to finish I cut I hammer I weld and then I paint that is fantastic so should we get back to our project sounds good okay so our ink is dry and we are ready to resin yay all right so I'm gonna mix up the resin perfect so Sue you were saying to cover these two bracelets probably a half an ounce total right right you don't need much you're not putting on a really thick layer because you're wanting to actually be able to keep the flexibility of the cuff because it's not a bracelet right now we've got it we're gonna have to shape it a little bit so so I'm gonna do about a quarter ounce approximately in the eyeball to cover both of these so I'm just gonna pour I'll start with the hardener it doesn't matter if you start with your resin first or your hardener as long as it's equal amounts of each so okay so you can dump both of these into a third container if you wish I'm just going to pour one into the other and then mix it and now we're gonna mix for three minutes I'm gonna make sure that I scrape the sides and the bottom as I go so that all of that resin and hardener are mixed in together so now when you can put on your favorite song dance you know thanks I think the dog upstairs would be howling so Sue when you're creating your cuffs do you batch it and you resin a full bunch of bracelets at once or do you tend to sort of do two at a time I actually end up doing a batch of them so normally when I'm painting I could end up with painting as few as two or as many as 20 and I'll mix up an amount of resin that would make the 20 bracelets and it's great art resin has a working time of about 40 minutes so you've got lots and lots of time to apply your your resin before it gets too thick to work with okay so we've hit the three-minute mark here so now it's ready for your magic I'm going to hand over the resin to you awesome so unlike some artists who use the resin who just pour it on I do a pour and again I love the paintbrush so what I'm going to do is I'm just going to pour a little bit down the middle okay back and forth and then put that off to the side and then what I do is I just push it out because I wanted to get it to the edges but I don't want it to go over and start encasing the bracelet right there's not enough you just add a little bit more on and you can always clean it up afterwards you just run the paintbrush around the bracelet and as you can see the colors are starting to come back they're bouncing back it just instantly become brighter and more saturated like they just come to life yeah and they stay that way now because of the resin which is part of what gives my jewelry this great pop so you're just nudging the resin up to the edge without going over the side exactly and if it does go over the side I just use the paint brush to run along but this way I'm sealing in everything and there we go it looks really good colors are popped all right so last step is torching yes take this off all right perfect and that's it that was quick yeah well maybe just a little touch there we go what do you think it looks perfect and see any bubbles perfect turn that off nicely done and our dust cover and we're gonna let this cook for 24 I know not 24 hours no 12 hours if you're making a bracelet cuff 24 hours if you're making any other piece of jewelry so I let it cure for 12 hours because for me to be able to bend the bracelets I still need the resin to be slightly soft but not rock hard yet so I will leave it sitting for 12 hours and what I do with this extra little pot over here I actually put it beside it on the shelf because instead of being tempted to touch the jewelry to see if it's hard enough yet I can touch the resin inside and I can get a feel of if I need to let it sit for a little bit longer so at the 12 hour mark the resin is gonna be dry to the touch you'll be able to handle it but it's still gonna be flexible enough that you'll be able to shape the cup into a bracelet exactly exactly so this needs to sit for 12 hours but you did bring some that you made earlier yes so these have been sitting for and curing for 12 hours and as you can see I can touch them there's nothing sticking up in that so what I'm gonna do is I'm actually going to bend these into a bracelet shape this is what's called a bracelet bender you can purchase them online or again at a craft store so what you do and you still want to be gentle with the resin you don't bracelet you don't want to be like manhandling it too much I will pop it off of here right and then you put it bracelet into this little slot quickly bend oh my gosh quickly bend and then you leave it see it's got the bracelet shape and after another 12 hours you'll just push it in a little bit more so we'll do that again pop it off your piece here and then you slip it in this little hole and you just bend and then you do the same on the reverse side and then there you go that is amazing so after the 12 hour mark you said you're gonna bend it just a little bit more yes yes just to make it a little bit tighter there should be a band inch space in the cuff and so that when you're putting it on that's that's the standard to be able to turn it like a lock nut you actually put the bracelet on this way and turn that way wow they're absolutely perfect beautiful and after the another 12 hours you'll just take a little bit of wire wool and you'll clean up any parts on along the edges and that are actually still have some paint or even a little tiny bit of resin and then you're done you've got a piece of jewelry that you made yourself amazing these are absolutely beautiful so can I try with them yes of course you can so nice so if I wanted to because my wrist is a little bit smaller after I purchased it can I you know sort of pinch it a bit to make it a bit smaller you can because the art resin has this flexibility in in it and along with the copper being a soft metal you're going to be able to bend it a little bit closer and it's not going to break the resin it's not going to crack it and it's not going to cause any damage to the bracelet that's a really good point our resin does have a little bit of flexibility built into the formula so obviously that works great for works for me yes yes well this is wonderful thank you so much for coming into the studio and for showing us how you make your gorgeous cuffs I really really loved watching you make these thank you thank you so much for having me it was great awesome and I hope that you enjoyed watching sue maker bracelets as well if you have any questions please leave them in the comments below don't forget to hit subscribe and we will see you next time bye bye