Create a Resin Geode

1. Introduction: Hi, everyone. My name is Katie Crawl and welcome to my class on how to create a resin geode work of art In this class, I'm gonna go over step by step, how to create three different diodes based on your skill and creativity level. We'll start with a simple, smaller geode and move on to a larger, more detailed yield with layers and effects, then will finish out with a more involved piece utilizing cutouts in three D elements to really create that geo book, I'll go over the basics of resin, including what reason I use how to mix it and how to use it to create the look that you're after. I'll take you through all the materials you need to get started, and we'll experiment with different techniques and effects to get comfortable with resin before we start the class project. There's a little something for all skill levels in this class. If you're a beginner who's never worked with president, you'll gain the confidence and knowledge to get started. And if you're intermediate or advanced resin artist, you might learn some new ways of working or just come along for the ride and see how Another artist works resident is such a fantastic medium because there are so many things you can do with it and it's so fun to work with, so let's get started. 2. Getting Inspired: all right, So we're gonna head over to Pinterest just to get some general inspiration for a piece before we start. And I've created this board full of egg it in geode slices. So the difference between an Agatha and in Geode is kind of subtle, I think mainly it's just that diodes are typically hollow in the center, and that's kind of where those crystals form, Um, so we're going to be drawing inspiration from both tickets and diodes, mainly taking from the Geo that there's a crystal formation happening. So just kind of browse through Pinterest and see what kind of images you can find and look at for inspiration. Or you can check out my Pinterest board baguette, geode and just see what I've kind of pinned here for inspiration. There's a ton of good images here, and this will kind of help you get inspired not only for just general composition of the piece, you know how to create the flow off your piece and where to maybe align crystal formations , but also give you an idea of different color combinations that you could go for, you know, based on natural stone or even just the colors of your house. If you want to make something that kind of matches a certain room of your house, go for that. So, like I said, this is just a great, um, great avenue for just getting inspired. And like this one, for example, this is such a cool effect, this crystal formation, and we can kind of emulate that with residents. So he'll definitely be showing you quite a few techniques to kind of emulate some of these certain effects that you see in natural stone. So here's an example, kind of of what I was talking about with that inter formation of crystals happening, this is really good, um, kind of representation of that. And then along the crystals, we have this beautiful banding that we can achieve with either reason or are detail at the end, with our little paint markers and gold leaf gilding paint. So I'll definitely showing, you know, step by step, how to create something like that, and also we see beautiful crystal formations. Maybe if you don't want to use actual crystals for this, I'll kind of give you some tips on how you can create something similar with resin. Here's a great example of a geode slice so you can see along the outer edges. There is kind of the the natural rock, which is a little bit of a dollar, you know, appearance. Nothing really to special. We can use that great stuff expanding foam on the edges of our peace to kind of help to represent that. And then as you look closer on the inside, you concede that crystal formation right in the center. And that's where we're gonna concentrate most of our crystals and then radiating out from that, you can see how these crystal formations just kind of form these bands, and that is something that is really unique to the geode and get rock. And that's definitely something that we're going to try to represent in our heart works. So there are tons of different ways we can create this banding and, um, crystal formation looking situation happening here. And I'm gonna show you all the techniques that I kind of have worked through and that I practice on my pieces to help you, you know, create a piece similar to a geo that you found for inspiration. Here's another example of just beautiful striations happening inside this geode. These are They're kind of like crystal formations, but it's just such an intricate, interesting pattern, and we can definitely try to incorporate some of that in our artwork. And it's really amazing just to look at the natural rock slice and just how intricate and detailed that crystal formation is on the inside. It's really breathtaking and beautiful after you're done kind of sifting through all these inspirational photos, and you've got kind of an idea of where you want to take your piece. We need to decide what size you want in what shape you want. I'm gonna take you through, you know, both ends of the spectrum, showing you a really simplified version that could be achieved pretty quickly with minimal layers and a little bit of detailed work. And I'm also gonna be demonstrating a larger scale geo. That's maybe a little bit more advanced. You know, it's a little bit more time consuming and has more layers were in use jigsaw to kind of cut out freeform area that we're gonna glue crystals to and will use expanding foam to add another three D element to it. And you know it will really be an intricate piece. So depending on your skill level and what you're comfortable with and how creative you feel , you know there's a wide range of different kinds of diodes that you can create with this class. In the next lesson, we're gonna go over materials that you'll need to start the course. 3. Materials: All right, So let's go over the materials that you'll need for the class to start out with. You're going to definitely want some sort of plastic sheet. This just catches all the resin drips and make sure it protects your working surface. And the reason doesn't stick to plastic, so you could just peel it right off once it's cured. And reuse that another tool you'll need is this heat gun. So I use a heat gun. Sometimes I use a little butane blowtorch. Um, but this just simply pops the air bubbles in your resin, and you can also use it to help create some effects, like lacing in just, you know, marbling of colors, mixing of colors. So this is a very handy tool and definitely a necessity. Also, you're going to need some gloves. They were just regular rubber gloves. Um, I tend to use more than one pair when I'm working on a project in case my hands get, you know, super full of resin. I might ditch the pair and get a new pair. Um, you know, you keep ah, roll of paper towels handy as well, just to kind of clean up any spills or messes that you might make. All right, let's talk about the resin. So I'm going to be using art reason for this class. It's my favorite brand. It is a little expensive, but I think you kind of get what you pay forest faras Rosen goes. I like it a lot because it's fairly nontoxic. There's no vo ces or harsh fumes. Um, it's B p a free. It's fairly like I said, non talks that gonna like that about it. It's also non yellowing, so that's great for art projects and keeping the longevity and clarity of the work standing strong for many years. I also like that their website is, ah, full of resource is that you can look through and answer any questions you might have about their resin and how to use it. It also has a really nice resin calculator that helps you determine exactly how much you'll need based on the size of your project. All right, let's talk about cups so you can get a ton of different sized cups. Here have these larger medium size plastic cups that are good to use. Um, I also have used Dixie Cups like this in the past, you can usable pipettes to kind of get the rosen out, or just kind of squeeze the cup and pour it just from the cup itself. You're also going to need some stirring sticks. I like these because you can kind of ripe off the reason when you're done and reuse them. Same with plastic cups. The resin doesn't stick to plastic, so I definitely want to try and re use as much material as you can. All right Now for the color additives, you can really just add whatever you want to resin. Um, within reason. Ah, that's why I don't recommend using exactly the products that I have here. But I'm just kind of showcasing what I've used, um, in the past. So a lot of pigment powders, um, acrylic. Any kind of acrylic paint is great to add. You cannot glitters. Um, pigment paste, spray paint Acrylic ink Alcohol Inc. Like the sky is the limit here. The only thing I wouldn't recommend is probably oil painter on oil based paint, so this white pigment paste is great for making cells. It's a very thick, dense pigment, usually white of any pigment is pretty dense and will create themselves. Um, I like this fluid golden fluid acrylic, white as well, because I could kind of get some more translucent whites out of it If I want, you know, less opaque version of a white and then glitters. There are tons of glitters that you can add. Get them from anywhere online or Michael sells tons of glittery away. Your local craft store pigment powders are great. Um, I just got these online. Please come in so many different colors so you can get gold and metallic pigment powders. This is a great one. It laces or really well, this comes in a lot of different colors as well. There's like aluminum, copper, different kinds of golds. You could use gold, acrylic or gold alcohol Inc like this one or pinata has a really good alcohol Inc. Um, yeah, and then spray paints, repeats a good one. It's inexpensive. You can get a lot of cool metallic colors and shimmery colors and then, yeah, acrylic acrylic inks are also great toe ad. Um, I think the general rule is adding 10% of colorant to your resin. The more you add, it just kind of affects the curing time of the risen. So the more you add, the faster it's gonna kind of set up, so you can add more if you want. Just keep that in mind that it will probably get a little thicker a little quicker than the rest of your mixes. All right, so keeping that in mind, there are a ton of additives that you can add to your reason. But like I said, I definitely kind of stick to more of the acrylic based additive. So acrylic ink, fluid, acrylic, even heavy bodied acrylic is fine. Alcohol inks are great pigment powders and pigments. Pastes are awesome. Um, and then spray paints very paints a good one. I would try to choose a brand that has good light, fast ratings that your piece can last for a long time to add finishing details. The peace use a lot of different things here. This is gold leaf gilding paint in silver. It is a very metallic, and it comes in a bunch of different metallic, um, finishes and almost of varying size brushes to paint this on the piece, and then to clean these brushes, you're gonna want to use mineral spirits. Since this is an oil based product, it's not just gonna rinse off with water. We're also gonna be using some of these different markers to add final, detailed lines to the peace. And you can get these in a bunch of different colors and brands. I think I have PDO here and Pasqua and they come in very indifferent, um, nib sizes as well. So you can't really find details or, you know, broader, broader strokes. So are like these Crile on ones. They make a really good metallic finished leaving pins that are, you know, high shine metallic finish. So those are really great to use as well. All right, let's talk about what you create your art resin piece on. I definitely recommend would over canvas just because chemists tends to be a little bit more expensive. Plus, it's not a very rigid surface, you know. There you go, the more kind of boasts in the center, I found, and resident will kind of pull up in those areas, so I go with would any kind of what is fine. The art store sells really nice cradle just sewed boards that are pre primed and ready to go. You could use wood paneling, um, and frame that. Or you could get larger pieces off like plywood or Masonite particleboard from your local hardware store. And this is great because it's really inexpensive to go this way, and you can get pretty big sizes and kind of trim them down to whatever size that you want to work with. So it's up to you. But for this class, I'm mostly using Cradle just so bored and, um, just masonite in plywood for my local hardware store. An important thing to know when you're working with wood is you want to make sure that your ceiling it before you add any reason to it, and you conceal it with any sort of house paint or primer. Or even just so. Just give it a couple coats just to kind of steel. That would in kind of prevents any air bubbles from seeping up through the wood and kind of ruining your piece. An optional tool for this class is a jigsaw. I use mind to kind of create these freeform areas where I'll be glowing crystals into my piece. But if you're not comfortable with using power tools. You can omit this and just kind of opt for a square circle or whatever shape you're working with It add crystals to that, and it'll look just is great. So this is optional. But you could also use this great stuff expanding foam to just kind of add a three D element to the peace. This is just sort of been to kind of mimic that rough, outer edge stone edge of a geode, and I really like it because it adds a little bit of interest of the peace and makes it a little bit more intricate and different. Some other miscellaneous items that you'll need our you know, a larger mixing bucket for your bigger batch of resin. Some tape to tape off the sides of your piece to prevent drips. Other mixing sticks, maybe a paint roller in primer. If you have to prime your would yourself. A level is also really important. We're also gonna need some gems and crystals and stones, too, including our peace to really make it look like a geode. And I like to head over to my local arts and crafts store for this. Um, I really like to use this fire glass. This comes in a court, a few different sizes, actually online, too, and different colors as well. And this really adds a lot of sparkle to the peace are like adding that especially for fillers. I guess that it comes in a bunch of colors. And I also like to use thes crystal and stone like, um, beads. I guess these air from Michael's and they do have a hole in the middle since they are beads . But I found that once you kind of glue them on to your piece, you can't really see the whole at all. So, um, I kind of like to rearrange those to kind of hide the whole in. That's totally workable for me, So but, yeah, some of these air just so beautiful looking. So I like to snag these up whenever I find him it coming out quite a few colors, too. So I got some silver ones, and there's also some gold ones and then larger crystal pieces. I like to take and glue around my cutouts to kind of emulate that geode crystal formation happening in the center of ah video. And then here is just some other options of tumbled crystals. I got these online. These were pretty much all the crystals and gems and stones and such that I use for my pieces, but definitely get out there and kind of hunt around for different things to use and see what you can come up with. That's pretty much all the materials that will be using for this class. And in the next lesson, we're gonna go over some resin basics and dive into some techniques in different ways of working with resin and different effects that you can kind of create and will experiment with those until we get really comfortable with president before we jump into our final project. 4. Learning Resin Basics and Techniques Through Experimenting: All right, let's talk a little bit about resin first. So the reason that I'm using is an epoxy based prison, and it's called art resin. It is a simple 1 to 1 ratio, and I find that to be the easiest to work with. Some of them have different ratios that you need to mix the resin and hardener together. But I like art resident cause it's just a simple 1 to 1 ratio. When you mixing your resident, I recommend using some sort of plastic container because when resin cures, it doesn't stick to plastic, so you could easily rip out the cured resin. And it's not gonna, you know, ruin your mixing container. You can re use that as many times as you want, so you could use a container that already has measurements laid out on it. That's kind of an easy way to easily kind of calculate how much you need of each part. Or you could use plastic cups and then just mark out whatever kind of ratio that you want for each part, and then mix those together. When you're mixing your resin, you're gonna want to get either some sort of plastic spatula, our plastic stir stick or even I use These would stir sticks that are really cheap, and sometimes you can even get them for free just to kind of make sure that you can easily scrape out the sides of your container in the bottom. And then you're also gonna want to frequently kind of scrape off the resin of your stir stick as well, just so that you could make sure that you're fully incorporating all of the reason together . Both parts need to be completely homogeneous, because if they're not, you're gonna kind of end up with some sticky spots in your resin. It's not going to cure properly, and that can also happen if you're not using correct measurements. Art resident recommends mixing your reason for at least three minutes to be sure it's completely mixed together. You'll notice that when you first start mixing, there's kind of these striations in the mixture, and you can definitely tell that it's two different parts. But the longer you mix, the more it just kind of looks clearer and clearer, and it looks more like fully mixed. Don't worry about any bubbles that get into your mixture at this point, those will all kind of come out in time. Our present has a working time of about an hour, Um, from start to finish. So you really do have quite a while toe work with the resident before it's set up too much to work with. Now that we understand a little bit about resin, let's go over some of the different methods of working with it. One of the most basic methods and easiest ways to control the resin is utilizing its viscosity and using that to your advantage. So when you mix up resin right away, it's pretty fluid. It's kind of like a syrup, and it will easily mix and bleed into the surrounding colors, which can be a good thing. You know, it can help you achieve lacing and marbling and mixing of colors, but sometimes you don't want areas to mix, or you want defined edges and banding similar to some of the inspirational images we found on Pinterest. For this, all we have to do is wait for the resin to set up and begin caring before report. This is the second method. Art Rosen has a working time of about 45 minutes. So at about 30 minutes or so, it starts to thicken in change, from a Serb to a molasses consistency. So when you pour it, it holds its shape. All thought better, and you can create bands of color that won't want to mix with surrounding areas. Keep checking on your risen to check its viscosity. If you wait too long, it will be to stringing and hard to work with. So something else to consider is working in layers. You can pour your entire piece all in one layer. You know it's a little bit simpler that way. It's a little bit faster, and you can still create some really stunning pieces with just one layer. I've done plenty pieces like this. You know where you just mix up your resin and just go for it and just pour your resin piece and you know, user heat tools to kind of encourage different effects, like lacing and mingling of colors, and then call it good. You know, add your final details with your Posca pate pens or metallic leafing, and you know that can really pull in the Geo book and give us that, you know, clear separation and definition areas. You know you can create that at the end with your detailed line work, and that will look like a stunning geode piece on its own. But if you want to get a little bit more intricate with it and kind of get more creative, you can add layers to your piece. So after a minimum of four hours is when art resin starts to become a little bit tacky to the touch, and that's when you can start adding more than one layer. So adding layers basically helps you to kind of create depth in your piece. You could use this to add different transparencies and, um, or maybe even opaque layers. Maybe you want to cover up a spot that you didn't quite like. You can do that with additional layers. Another technique I like to do when working flares is to, on my second layer, use just kind of poor an area of clear resin. And then on top of that, I will drizzle in some either white resin or maybe a different color, Um, and then use my heat tool to kind of feather that out a little bit and create a little bit of blending, and that look kind of signifies or represents the sort of crystal like formations that we kind of saw in some of our examples and just helps to add some interest in the peace without adding actual crystals or glass. And you can create this look with you. No more contrast than what I have here could use a really dark base, and then on top of that, use your white and kind of feather in some crystal like formations or, you know, keep it really subtle, like I've done. So. I really encourage you to get out there and just experiment with all these different ways of working in different techniques to really find out which ones that you like, which ones work for you and which ones you can incorporate into your piece to really create the look that you're after. So I've mentioned lacing a couple of times. But what is lacing? Basically, it's the kind of effect that looks like a web of factor, like a webbing pattern, a laced pattern that kind of happens when you stretch resin over your piece. It happens the easiest with a dense pigment, so I found pretty much any white will give you good lacing, but my favorite white to use releasing is white pigment paste. It just seems to be a little bit more dense and so opaque that it just gives a really nice effect. I can get lacing with thinner whites like this golden fluid acrylics, but usually the lacing with this white is a little bit more subtle and subdued because I tend t mix this white on the lighter side and use it more as kind of a semi opaque white. And because of that, the lacing isn't as prominent. But I also see lacing happening with things like pigment powders. Specifically, the metallic powders or metallic Michael powders really dio have a nice lacing effect, and it's easiest to achieve this with freshly poured resin or fairly freshly poured resin. That's still pretty fluid. And just by using any heat tool like a ah butane torch will work fine. But I prefer to use a heat gun to kind of manipulate my resin, and you just kind of want toe, heat the resin up a little bit, constantly moving your heat gun that you're not burning your piece and I'm just kind of use that to push the resin on top of itself. And when that white spreads across other layers, it kind of spreads out in this lacing kind of pattern or effect, which could be pretty, you know, pretty cool and intricate and add some, really, um, interest to your piece. So that's probably one of the most used techniques. Another technique would be to just kind of use your mixing stick or, you know your finger, even to just drag your rosen around on your piece and just kind of manipulate that to create a marbling effect, which I think works really well. It works a little bit better after you're done, you know, with your heat gun and you're not gonna apply any more heat to it, because the second you do, you're just gonna kind of model that affect a little bit. So it's best to try and do marbling at the end of your piece when you're kind of done using your heat tools and that will help it stick a little bit better. And it could be a little bit hard to create really thin lines with present. Even if you're waiting until it's, you know, really thickened up. It can be kind of hard to create thin lines with it. So I found that the easiest way to do this is to just do it at the end with your detailed marker pens or paint pins, you know, or your gold leaf gilding paint. That's kind of the easiest way that I found to add striking thin lines. That's pretty much all I wanted to go over Aziz faras different present techniques and methods and ways of working with it. But I think we'll give you a really good foundation to start with when creating diodes. So take this time now to experiment, to get out there and see how resin behaves and all these techniques, you know how they work together in which ones you prefer and really get comfortable with present before you jump into your final piece. So grab, you know, a pre Jess owed panel board, or, you know, some piece of wood that you've primed and just kind of start playing around with Present. And seeing how these techniques work in action may be discovering some happy accidents of your own in different ways of working that I haven't mentioned that maybe you want to try and your piece, you know, revisit your inspiration from Pinterest and color palettes that you may want to try and really get a feel for and map out your final piece before you get started. It will really give you more confidence to start your final piece having this experimenting under your belt. In the next lesson, we're gonna jump into diodes and I'll show you how to create a smaller, more simplified 5. Create a Small Geode: So I wanted to show you a couple examples of pieces that I poured all in one layer and using my heat tool to kind of create certain effects. So this was done with freshly mixed risen, and I just used my heat tools to kind of encourage this like lacing pattern happening and just kind of mixing and melding over the colors together. I added my crushed glass and some silver beads and glitters to really create that crystal like look without cutting into the peace and having to glue the crystals on your able to create this fairly easy just by placing them straight on your board to kind of Italian. That geo look, I was able to then add my final detailed layers of marker pens on top, with Michael gilding kind of around the crystal formations at that gold pop and then white markers to really add some definition and banding to kind of make it look a little bit more like a geode. Here's another example of a piece that I poured in the same way just all in one layer, and I really, you know, encouraged lacing on this one. Happened a lot in the gold and a couple places in the white. And I really like to use, um, a light gray. Whenever I use white, it just helps to add a little bit of depth and shadow, and I think it looks really nice, especially when you're adding your white details over the top kind of really pops. And you can see by all the gold detail ing that you don't have to add the gold in your resin to get that look. You can add it in the final stages with your gold gilding pink. All of fine detail work that I was able to add with my pay pens and gold leaf gilding paint at the end really helped to kind of pull the piece together and make it look a lot like a geode. Okay, now let's go step by step through the process of creating a smaller piece like this, I'm gonna start out by using just this 12 by 12. Jessel board is a cradle board that I just got from, I think, hobby lobby or something like 50% off. And I like him because they're already primed and ready to go, and there's no kind of prep work involved. You can see I'm working on this silicone mat. I like to work on either silicone or plastic, she just to catch the drips and protect my working surface. And it's also nice to peel off the cured resin once you're done. Because as I told you before, Resin doesn't stick to plastic or silicone, so it makes for a really easy cleanup. I'm just going to use some little Dixie cups to kind of raise my board off the surface a little bit and then use my level two completely. Level the surface instead of completely planning out the piece. Sometimes if it's small like this, I like to just go right ahead and dump some crystals on and see kind of what kind of forms I can make with them and then go from there for this one. I decided to just mainly use that crushed glass. I think this is called Fire Glass, actually, but it's really sparkly and shimmery, and I think it would look great with this piece. Okay, I've got me resin all mixed up, and I'm going to start by pouring some clear over the top of the crystals just to kind of cement those in place. I'm trying not to get the clear to escape beyond the borders of the crystals that I put down. But if it does, that's okay. I just try to kind of keep it enclosed in there. No, I've kind of separated my resin into my cups and mixed a few pigments up for this piece of used by silver mica powder, some golden fluid, acrylic and titanium white and liquid text light grey acrylic ink. I like to start by adding some silver or sometimes gold just along the edge of my crystals . And I know that I want to be adding some final Silverleaf building along the edge as well, and it's gonna be a little bit different of a silver, and I think that contrast is really gonna look nice. I'm adding a dark stripe of silver kind of through the middle of the peace to kind of break it up a little bit and create some movement next to my silver. I'm adding some light gray and then next to that, I'm gonna go in with my white and I've mixed it up, said it's not super. Um oh, Paige. It's got a little bit of transparency to it, so I'm not going to get heavy lacing with this. It will be more of a subtle look if I do, um, but that's kind of what I'm going for over this piece. Just using my Popsicle stick to kind of smooth out and push the residue around. And I wanted my white to kind of lay up against the silver so that I can use my heat tools to really encourage some blending and mixing up the pigments together. I love using the heat gun to really push the resin around and see what kind of effects I can get from it. Sometimes it's not entirely predictable, and I like that. So right now I'm just kind of pushing that silver around and trying to get it to Web out a little bit. It's a constant push and pull with adding pigment and resin and using your he tools to create movement. It doesn't always turn out how you want it, but that's kind of the unpredictability of reason, and you can I have to just accept it, adding some more stripes of that white to kind of separate the silver and I'm going in here with, um, kind of an off white pearlescent Michael powder that I had mixed up with just some extra resin that I had. I didn't really like how this was looking, So I ended up scraping most of that pearl powder off, which is OK. I mean, the piece turned out great in the end, so it wasn't a huge deal. I have noticed a fair spot that I kind of wanted to add a little bit more silver, too, so we can see me doing that here just to help balance the piece out a little bit more. So here's the finished piece, and it does look a little bit plane. But there are some really nice subtle differences, especially where we put that light gray. I think it really adds a nice step to the peace, and especially once we put our, you know, final detail working and our white lines and our silver lines really gonna look nice. So here I'm just showing you how easy it is just to peel the cured resin off a silicone mat or plastic mat, and you can keep these drips and use them for experiments to test things on toe, collect and save certain color palettes that you worked on previously. So I think it's a really handy to kind of keep. So I didn't show this on camera, but I ended up adding some of these little silver beads in the piece. I added them when the reason was still wet so that they would care with the peace. And I think it just adds a little bit more pop to the peace and another interesting element . Okay, so now it's time for details. I'm going in first with this silver leaf gilding paint, and I just use various size brushes with this to kind of paint on the piece. To clean these brushes, you're gonna want to use a mineral spirit like gams all. And just because this is an oil based product, it's not gonna rinse off with water, so you have to use a mineral spirits. And then here are the markers that I'll be using for the peace. So this is a big, chunky PDO marker. I like this one a lot, Um, and then I also have some various thinner Pasqua paint white markers that are also going to be good to use was to get different line variations and wits and then a couple of cry lawn , um, metallic pens that I'll be using one of them was kind of dried out, but it's don't worked out all right to start, I'm just gonna grab a spare piece of resin drip just to kind of get the markers tested out and make sure that they're all flowing nicely before I start putting them on the piece. I'm just gonna kind of go with the flow of what I could see already happening in the peace and work with the patterns that I can already see forming. So I'm gonna kind of follow this shadowed edge around this first crystal cluster with my white pen. And the fun thing about this is it's kind of like mindless doodling. Almost. You just kind of get lost in adding details here and there. And it's really fun to just form your piece at this stage and really bring it to life with all the detail work. I'm also gonna add some more white definition on this side, just kind of following the patterns, and I'm already seeing in the work. Okay, so now all my favorite part believe gilding so really important to shake up these little bottles cause the metallic pigment tends to kind of sink to the bottom, and there are very few me. So you want to make sure you're in a well ventilated area when you're working with this stuff? And I'm just gonna kind of glob this around all the edges of my crystal formations, kind of making sure to get this on some of the crystals as well as you know, on the outer edge. And this, in contrast with the silver that I used in the piece, it's not quite the same silver, and that really adds interesting element. I think the more you kind of glob on of this it kind of separates in a way that's really interesting and intricate when you're looking up close. So I'm just gonna take my time and add this wherever. I kind of think it needs it and there's no right or wrong way to do this. It's just kind of all what you think helps to balance the peace and creates an interest. I do like that silver powder mica powder that I was using, but often times I don't quite find it punchy enough. So I really like to add this Silverleaf fielding paint, um, in the final stages to really make it super metallic looking because the silver powder that I used with a little bit more glittery than it was metallic e So are really like this stuff . And like I said, the more you kind of glossed this on. The more kind of creates interesting, um, kind of drawing patterns. Almost the metallic pigment kind of separates in kind of sticks to the edges of the glob, and I don't know how else to explain it, but it's it looks really cool in person. Now I'm going to switch to the metallic pens, and this again is a little slightly different kind of sheen of silver. And I think all these different looks of silver in this piece really bring it to life again . I'm just kind of tracing along, you know, some already defined edges in the piece as well as creating my own edges. I really like to double up my lines, even triple or quadruple up my lines. It really adds a nice kind of story a shin pattern similar to some of the inspirational photos we found of actual baguette and geo slices. They often have banding that kind of ripples out. All right, so final touches here, just adding any final touches of silver. And she's done. This little geode is all done. Now to finish off the look, you can add a clear coat of resin to kind of seal in all of your detailed lines and make sure they don't kind of chip off or anything down the road. If you decided to do this little geode, be sure to post it in the project section so we can all take a look. In the next lesson. I'm gonna go over a little bit more of an intricate geode, and we're gonna go over some more techniques, layering and get a little bit more involved 6. Create a Large Layered Geode: when I start a bigger piece like this, I always find it a good idea to just sketch out a few ideas on paper before I get started. And that just kind of helps me to visualize. I want toe. Look, what kind of crystals do I want to use? What kind of colors don't want to use? You know, I'm gonna have a lot of banding, and I'm gonna have a lot of light areas. Is it gonna be a darker piece? This is really the time to kind of just sketch all your ideas out and different variations of the piece just to kind of help your mind wrap around. You know what it's gonna look like That way. You're not scrambling after you mixed your resident not knowing where to start. You've kind of got, you know, a mapped out, um, little thumbnail off your piece and kind of have an idea of how you want to create it. So I'm just gonna do a couple of quick little thumbnails there. Nothing special. I'm not really using any colors or anything in the thumbnails, Although you can. If it helps, you kind of get a better idea. of the look of your piece kind of helps you to remember certain things, but I've done enough of these where I kind of know what I'm thinking when I just do a quick pencil sketch like this. So take the time to study your references, look at pictures of diodes and sketch out a piece that you think will look good. I mean, you want it to be balanced. You don't want the crystal formations to look to. Perfect, because nature is perfectly in perfect. You want things to look not to planned, So don't make too many, you know, Rambo arcs perfect. Perfect arches don't really look natural. Energy owed peace. So, yeah, take the time, Teoh. Draw out your piece. And, you know, keeping in mind all the inspiration that we've looked at and kind of get an idea for what you want to do in your piece. Now that I've kind of nailed down my sketch, I'm going to start by placing in some crystals. Um, kind of how I thought they might look best. So I have various different sizes of fire glass here. Some of it I got from my goals there really find crystals are from my goals, and then the larger pieces I actually ordered on Amazon. So I like to mix up with figure pieces and smaller pieces. Just add some dimension and, um, contrast to the peace so you don't really want your crystal formations. Like I said to be too perfect. You want to make him a little bit jagged and uneven, and I'm ready to go in with my resin. So I do like to start by pouring resin along the edges of the crystals. I don't know why. It's just something that I always do, and I'm just using pearlescent pigment powder for this. It gives a really nice shimmer and shine effect, and the next to that I'm going in with this really light, pale purple. And my idea for this is that it's going to be kind of subtle, just mainly as kind of a gush shadow area, just to add some depth. It's probably gonna be feathered out quite a bit, and you won't really notice it a ton, but I do think it's really nice to add subtle details like this. They had just kind of layering in some more pigments around that purple. This is just white. I think this is kind of a translucent. Why? It's not super opaque. It's not the pigment pace. I think this is the golden fluid acrylics white. And now I'm gonna go in with a darker pigment. This is a chocolate brown from full grizzle resin, and I didn't mix too much of it in my residence. I wanted to be not super opaque, but it does look pretty dense here, but that's gonna be feathered out a little bit. I did add some of that purple into it as well. Just a kind of toned down the brown a little bit and make it more of like a tope kind of brown. Um, and I'm just trying to balance the piece out by adding some darker areas to break up all that lightness and just kind of going with the flow, keeping an eye on my thumbnail sketch. But you don't have to, you know, do completely exactly what you've mapped out. You know, you're working on the piece and you think something might look better a different way, you know, definitely Go for it now is the fun part. So the heat tool for me is really where it starts to kind of get a life of its own. And you can really kind of create just such cool patterns with the heat tool. Um, so I kind of go crazy with this and just see what starts happening. And when I like when I don't like, you know, you can always pour resin over the top or at this point, but even scrape it off if you're not happy with how it's looking, Um so just kind of have fun with it, based on your experimenting and what you kind of found out. You know how Rosen behaves. Take that knowledge and kind of apply it to your piece. So I'm just going back and forth, using my heat tool and adding more resin and just seeing how it looks and what it needs. Um, one of my favorite things that kind of happens with the heat tool besides lacing and stuff is that it kind of creates more of like a shadowed appearance. You know, when it pushes, lighter color is lighter, more translucent colors over the top of darker ones. You're going to get kind of like this shadowed appearance and that also adds a lot of depth to your piece. Now I'm going back over those crystals just with some clear resin to really glue those in place. I just want to make sure I have enough reason for that. And I don't run out before I get to do that. One more pass with my heat gun too. Really? Kind of melt things together and finish this first layer off. So I let my piece kind of chill out for about 45 minutes, I think. And rat kind of ah, hardening stage here. So resident, a little bit stiffer than I'd like it to be. But we're gonna run with it anyway. And I'm using a syringe. Two kind of suck this up and, um, drizzle it over my piece. You don't have to use a syringe. You could use ah, popsicle stick and just kind of do it that way. But I find the syringe gives you a lot more control over consistent lines. Plus, it's plastic. So you couldn't definitely peel out that cured resin and continue to use a syringe later. So I'm just sucking her all up and getting ready to escort it out on the piece. And I tend to do this mostly with glitter lines. Um, I just think it that's really nice, crisp element bomb and your glitters Not gonna kind of fade into everything because it's so stiff already. It's not really going to do that. But you could do this with, you know, white or some other color as well. And since this piece isn't cured yet, it has only been like I said, about 45 minutes to an hour from nothing is gonna go anywhere. But the your letter lines definitely will sink into the peace. So they're not going to be raised. Lines are not gonna be bumpy. We're definitely gonna kind of sink in. And just everything is gonna be one flat piece when it cures. And I thought it needed just a little bit more crystal, so I'm adding some more right in this upper edge and, um, just a thought. It needed a little something up there. And that is all I'm gonna do for this layer. And I'm going to let the peace here overnight. It is a good idea. Teoh, try and cover your piece just so that no hairs or dust can flies in there. Here's into your piece, which I always manage to get some sort of cat hair stuck in there. I mean yellow with three furry animals running around, so it's really hard for me to that hair out of there. But try to cover it if you can. So it has been a couple days since it's, um, cured. And typically, if you wait about four hours, you can start in with your next layer of resin and you won't have to sand. But since I waited about three days, it's a good idea to stand your piece just to ensure that the next layer, um, has a chance to completely bond to this kier layer. All right, now, I'm going in with my second layer, and I'm just I don't really have a huge playing here. Just gonna kind of feel it out and see what it needs. I definitely know I'm gonna add some gold, so I'm kind of adding some gold in certain areas. I think I want to do it around the crystals, so I'm adding clear resin first, just so that the gold has a chance to feather out a little bit on the edges because resin next to dried rather isn't going to move a whole lot. So I just want to give that gold a chance to kind of feather out a little bit and then using that heat tool to really kind of push that gold around. And I want a little bit more dimension in that, um, darker band running through the middle of the piece. So I'm gonna add a little bit of clear resin on top first. And then I'm gonna go over that with my white resin, which is the golden fluid acrylics. And now I'm going in with that technique. It kind of went over a little bit in the resin basics and techniques lesson. And I'm just adding some white kind of striations over the top of this clear. Um, and then I'm gonna use my tool and Popsicle stick to kind of father about around a little bit that way. It kind of looks kind of like a I don't know, like crystals kind of shooting out or like, you know, the striations that we found in those examples. And, um, it's kind of subtle because the background colors are very light, so you don't really notice it a ton, Um, and definitely no more in person and on camera. But, I mean, this would be a great technique to do over the top of a darker area. All right, so that's gonna wrap it up for this piece, this large geode. And, um, after this kind of cured, I added one more coat of just clear resin over the top of everything just to give myself and even based to add my details on, I just start adding details with my gold around my crystal. So I didn't really like the gold that I had, um, in my resin. It wasn't really a fan of the current gold that was so I'm just adding this cool leave gilding with a simple brush all around the edge and just going to kind of cover up that as much as I can. And that's the nice thing about resin. You can kind of cover up what you don't like and fix it if you think it needs to be fixed. So I'm also going to add a gold section in the middle of these crystals. I think that's really going to add some more dimension to the peace and then go in with all of my marker details to really finish piece and pull it together. - Once I'm satisfied with all the details that I've added, I'm gonna add one more clear coat of resin over everything just to seal it all in so that none of these details can be kind of scraped off at all. And since I didn't tape the edges like I mentioned before, you can just sand the drips off of the back. It's pretty simple. This takes a little bit of time and then to finish the edges off. I'm just applying some gold leaf gilding. Teoh really tie into the the gold theme of this piece, and that's it. If you decided to make one of these larger Geos, I would love to see what it looks like. So be sure to post that in the project area. All right, up next is a little bit more of an advanced geo. We're going to be cutting out some areas, glowing crystals and also using some three D elements. So if you're feeling extra creative, joined me there and we'll discover how to create that 7. Getting Creative with Geodes: All right, So for this Geo, we're starting out with a piece of plywood that I'm going to prime with white paint and then use my jigsaw to cut out this kind of random pattern on the corner that's supposed to kind of signify represent the inside of a geode where the crystal formations kind of happened. And we're just gonna kind of glue different crystals and stones and gems to this outer shape that I've cut out and that'll kind of represent, um, look, I said that inner crystal formation, So I'm just kind of demonstrating this on a different piece that I did. Um, just kind of how I lay these crystals in. I kind of just trying to puzzle piece them together, making sure that I'm varying the size of crystals I have placed next to each other and making sure that they're all going at kind of different angles so that it looks as natural as possible with a piece that I did for the class. I actually used a combination of these little crystals and then also some larger crystal like stones that I kind of found that I thought would look really good with the color scheme that I plan to use for the piece. So it's the same principles, just kind of using different materials. All right, now for the three D elements, or we're gonna be using this great stuff expanding foam. You couldn't get a different brand. You want to get great stuff, but it's just expanding foam That's really gonna help to create that outer naturalistic rock look, So we're gonna take this and kind of spray it along the edges of the peace to kind of help create that rock. Look, and keep in mind that this is gonna obviously expand quite a bit, so less is more to start with. And then you can always, you know, add more if it didn't kind of expand as much as you wanted it to. So, like I say, with pretty much everything else, you want to make sure that you're making this look as natural as possible. So don't be too perfect with it, you know, create thicker areas and places and kind of, you know, make this look as natural as you can. I was drawing out here that shape that I think I kind of want and filling it in and then kind of waiting for it to expand a little bit before it kind of see if I need any more. After the foam has completely dried, I'm going to go in and cut off the bumpy bits because I want this to kind of look like this is a real slice of stone. And so we want to also make sure that this stone part is sliced a swell. So I'm just going to be using a long sharp, um, not serrated knife to cut off this phone part and have been speaking to knife. But use whatever knife you have available, Don't cut into yourself. Rule of thumb cut away from your body. Um, yes. So we're just gonna cut off this phone part to make it look more like it's an actual slice of stone and you can see there's kind of some dips and voids here of air pockets that were in there. It helps it look a little bit more natural that way. You also want to cut off any excess that may have gotten onto the back of the pieces. Well, and then I'm gonna take this outside and spray paint all the foam areas and to spray paint . I just use a combination of these two colors. I think is going to really kind of match the color scheme of the peace a little bit while also keeping the look of natural stone but making it look a little bit more interesting. And then I just use a paintbrush to kind of smooth along, um, the excess spray paint that kind of dripped along the edges. Now, before I start, I'm just gonna add in a little bit more of these clear, smaller crystals just to kind of fill up some space and add more dimension in variation of gem sizes and gem types, and then start by pouring in some layers, starting near the crystals. And it's kind of working my way out seeing what I think it needs. Kind of, um, looking at my reference that I kind of my thumbnail that I sketched out before this piece, which is always a good idea to kind of sketch out your piece before you start, just to kind of get an idea of where you want to go with it, and I'm also going to use some of that same spray paint that I used for the rocks in this piece. I just hope tired together. And like I said, spray paint can be used with resin. You just have to basically cup your hand or with your jar, and then spray the spray paint right in your cup of resin and then mix it up and you're good to go. So I'm adding some darker areas around the rock formations. Just think it'll add a little bit of dimension over there and then gonna ask gold along the edge of that to kind of feather that into it with my heat gun, cause that kind of creates a nice lacing effect that I really like. And for this first layer, I'm just going to kind of create some lacing and some mixing of colors. And I'm also gonna leave some areas open with no resin on them, just because, um not quite sure what I want to do my second layer. And it would be nice to have kind of open areas that I can have you no well defined edges because that's kind another technique you can use to create. You know, find banding is if you're pouring areas and leaving areas open so that when you put your next layer next to cured resin, it's going to kind of act as a barrier and a well defined edge, but it so we all kind of speed this up. But I'm just kind of adding in resin and amusing my heat gun to create lacing and mixing of colors. And then I'm also gonna add some more gems and crystals to the middle section just cause I think it, um it just needed something in the middle. So I'm adding these on the first layer and kind of closing that off with some goals. And then I'll see all those and with some clear resin again. So this is the end of the first layer. So I'm gonna let this dry or care, and you can see I have some open areas. Okay, so now that this is cared, I'm gonna go in with my second layer. Um, adding some more of those bigger crystals. Um, I just don't think it needed a little bit more something And those kind of tie into that cut out edge that I have and also meant that in with clear residents Well, and then I'm just gonna kind of fill in those boys that I left from the first layer. I had an idea to do some marbling up here in this area. I didn't really like how that turned out, but I think I was thinking that I could save it with the details, but no, I'm still not really like in that area, but that's OK going in with my syringe with glitter lines, and this is what we're working with. So now I'm gonna go in with all of my details, going to add some of my metallic leaping pens, white Posca paint markers and also that gold leave building paint Kristen areas where I think it kind of needs it to spice it up a little bit at some dimension and some definition in areas. And, um, he's gonna have fun with it, - All right? And that is it. I hope you enjoyed watching this process of creating a little bit more of an intricate, um, geode piece with the cutout edge and glued crystals as well. Azad three d foam rock look. So if you decided to give this one a try, definitely put it in the project area. I would love to see what it looks like 8. Final Thoughts : we've made it to the end. That was a lot of information. Got resin and how to create geode effects. I hope you were able to pull some inspiration from me to create a piece of your old and I'd love to see what you created. So we should have post that in the project area so we can all take a look. If you have any questions about materials or methods that I may be skimmed over too quickly , let me know and I'll be sure to get back to you. I hope you had fun learning some things about resin and watching some geo paintings come to life. There are so many different looks can create, So go give it a try.