Painter Bob Ross used to talk about ‘happy accidents’ in art, and I’ve just had one. During my good friend Vicki Webster’s recent visit, we stopped at Michael’s, which, as you know, is one of my favorite places. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been experimenting a lot with resin lately–10 failures for every success, but hey. I’m getting better at it.
Anyway, I found those little silver favor trays in the wedding section, and a light went on! I bought a packet, brought them home, coated them with metal primer, and painted away. Using clip art, I made a little collage, glued it into the bottom of the tray, and WAITED (the hardest part) for the thing to dry. Then I mixed up some resin and poured it in and WAITED again. (I’ve ruined at least half a dozen earlier pieces because I couldn’t keep myself from touching the surface to see if it was hard yet. Then there were the ones that never hardened at all because I hadn’t mixed the resin well enough. Impatience is my besetting sin.) Like I said, 10 failures for every success. Or semi-success!
What have I learned? It would be better to sand the trays before the metal primer goes on, and a coat of gesso on top of that works even better. We craft, we learn.
Here’s a little secret I’m only telling you. Each of my pieces has a mustard seed in it somewhere, that’s my trademark. Why a mustard seed?
Because of the Bible verse, of course. “If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, nothing shall be impossible to you.” Have you ever looked at a mustard seed? Tiny, tiny, tiny. Hint: you can find mustard seeds in the spice section of most grocery stores, if you don’t remember how small they are.
So many wonderful things can happen if you have just that much faith.
What do YOU need to believe can happen?
