Resin Art workshop with Belong Design Adelaide

Mix the resin, add colour, swirl and then use a heat gun to create a masterpiece of your own.
Abstract, glossy and attractive - that is what struck me whenever I saw resin art on social media, and I’d been itching to make my own masterpiece. After all, there’s no right or wrong when using resin.
After some research, I found a workshop by Rebecca Hill of Belong Design. And after a few emails, here I am in her studio, stand- ing in front of a lot of reusable containers, resin, hardener, wooden sticks and a round MDF board painted white.
The two-hour class includes all materials to create your own unique piece, and starts with a demonstration.
As a beginner, I am told that you need to use resin and hardener, as epoxy resins are a two-component system. Hill pours the two in equal parts and starts mixing.
“It’s like making a cup of tea; you can’t mix aggressively,” she says. “They say it should be mixed for three minutes but I think it takes less than that.
Once you see that there are no air bubbles in the mixture and it looks a bit murky, then you know it’s done.”
Hill then pours out the mixture into three or four containers in different quantities, depending on the colours she is using for her art piece. She adds a pinch or drop of colour that comes in inks and powders to each bowl, mixes it with a wooden stick and is ready to start.
“Everyone has different techniques; some people swirl the board, while I use the stick to spread the colour,” she says. “Some artists also use a hairdryer instead of a heat gun.”
It’s now my turn to create my masterpiece and Hill guides me to choose the colours, showing me some of her other artworks to see how the colours look together.
You get a choice of five colours and I go with red, yellow, blue, silver and green. Some of them are solid colours, some trans- lucent. I pour the resin and hardener mix- ture in the right quantity and prep my colours.
Having absolutely no design in my mind, I stare at the board for a good two minutes, looking for inspiration.
“You can always use a pencil to draw some lines and see your colour co-ordi- nation,” Hill says. “But do remember that it wouldn’t turn out exactly the same, as resin is a fluid medium.”
I shun the pencil and the sketch and give in to her nudge of starting with one colour and spreading it on some parts of the board, and that’s how it all begins.
Once I put the first splotch on, I just go with whatever comes to me and start add- ing colours in different patterns. The pro- cess of putting colour on my 40cm-round board takes 12-15 minutes.
I then use the heat gun to remove air bub- bles and create a few effects which come out like ripples and spread the colours. The heat gun effects create some cool mixes and give it a form. I find it to be the most excit- ing part of the creation process. We add some more colour and apply the heat gun again.
I am happy with my creation, though I think it turned out darker than I had plan- ned. Boards are left overnight for the resin to set. When I pick it up the next day, it looks much better.
The artwork can be used as a wall hang- ing, a board on which to keep candles or as a platter, as the resin used is food safe. I put mine to use the very next day as a grazing platter and that becomes the talking point of the evening.
Hill gives you all the tools and techniques to start on your resin art journey and also tells you what products to buy and where in the city. It’s a wonderful and relaxing ex- perience. I am sure to do it again, as it is a world of exploration and experimenting with this unique fluid medium.
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