Oct 10, 20224 min read

Resin Wave Sculpture

Updated: Jun 6, 2023

Here is how Deb Lebus (from Sooke Style Mixed Media), made this wave…..

In Deb’s words….

“I’ll try to make it as brief as possible.

I will start with telling you that I intentionally did it a little backwards when laying out my colors. I laid the white next to the blue and then the clear after the white.

Normally you would blow the white back over the clear to achieve cells. I couldn’t get that to look right so I did it the other way and shaped it at the end with my Dremel.

These are the products I used:

24” x 9 pieces of aluminum foil

White glue

Plastic garbage bag that is crumpled up in a ball to make lots of creases

Resin and colourants were from ArtWorks Resin Canada ….

Initially a thin viscosity resin, then a few others on next layers (a few of the resins used are no longer stocked here).

Color Passion gel tints-Sapphire, Aqua, Seafoam

Color Passion Top Cell White pigment paste

Le Rez Expressions Deep Blue Sea transparent liquid tint

99% Alcohol in a spritzer bottle

Dremel rotary tool

Day 1: Apply the glue over the entire surface of a piece of tin foil and place the second piece on top and smooth out any air bubbles. Continue this step with all 9 pieces of the foil. Let it dry overnight.

Day 2: Fold the edges of the laminated foil over twice to make your own homemade cookie sheet

(See photos) Tape the outside of the corners to make it stronger.

Take a popsicle stick and drag it back and forth to make lines in your new foil pan. I put my new foil pan onto a piece of cardboard, so it was easier to move around.

Lay the crumpled plastic bag over the foil tray, making sure you have several inches of the plastic overhanging the foil tray. Also, make sure there are not any hard-line creases in your piece of plastic. They will stick out like a sore thumb (experiment #1)

I’m sorry I don’t remember how much resin I mixed up for this project, as I had to do a lot of experiments to find a way that worked! I think I mixed up 600 ml (2 ½ cups)

I separated it equally into 4 cups and a small container for the white, and kept ¼ cup of resin in reserve

Start at one end with the darkest color working up to the lightest color gently pushing the resin into the corners and the edges, but don’t pour it all the way to the other end of the wave-see photo

Pour the white next to the blue and add the clear resin above the white, again pushing it into the edges & corners. The clear should reach the other end of your cookie sheet.

Drag a stir stick through the blues gently to blend them and spritz with the alcohol to remove any bubbles

I used my heat gun on the lowest heat setting to blow the white back over the blue to create some cells, it was set to 170 degrees, but I had to do it quickly, so I didn’t melt the plastic (that happened on experiment #1)

I dragged the white around a bit with the popsicle stick until I liked how it looked.

Now to wait until it was still flexible, but it didn’t run because it wasn’t set enough. This might be the hardest part and the reason we are now on the sixth try to achieve this sculpture!

When it was still flexible, I lifted the plastic off the foil tray and draped it over a 5-gallon bucket.

Now bear with me lol

I used some masking tape on the plastic sheet above the clear end of resin and taped it to the bucket

I then rolled the bucket over the other end of the wave, so the darkest blue end of the wave was sitting flat on the table under the bucket. I hope my description makes sense!

I then taped the bucket down to the table as it just wanted to roll from the weight of the wave.

Day 3: wait patiently lol

Day 4: It was still not hard enough to support the shape without collapsing (experiment #2 & #3 & #4)

Day 5: Finally able to remove it from the bucket and it held its shape! I did let it sit for several more days to be sure it held its shape when I took the Dremel to it.

I used the Dremel to shape it into a more natural looking wave (See photos)

**Now not to be a preacher but, I do feel I have to mention PPE. I always wear a respirator, goggles, nitrile gloves and an apron when I work in my studio with any resin. It’s a personal choice for everyone. I just want to stress how important PPE is when using the Dremel on your dried resin. I sand and Dremel outside, not in my studio. Please be aware of how much resin dust is created when you finish the edge of your wave with your rotary tool. The photos of that process shows how much dust is created. End of my preaching 😊

Many thanks to all of you for the wonderful comments!

Enjoy your waves and please feel free to ask me (Deb) any questions you might have!”