Customer Reviews

The Art of Jewelry: Plastic & Resin: Techniques, Projects, Inspiration

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am literally jumping for joy over finally having a reference book that really shows what can be done with the marvellous media of Plastic/Acrylics and Resin.

Commencing with a solid Introduction to plastics and safety, you then progress to Techniques and Tools that are used in both media, incorporating plastics with other materials, such as Metals, there is even a brief section on techniques for metalworking. Certainly enough for someone unfamiliar with this, although to be honest, to get the best out of this, you need to work on your metalsmithing skills - and that does not mean soldering as the vast majority of projects use cold connections, sawing and piercing as the main elements.

Then we get to the awesome projects. Rings, necklaces, brooches, pins, bangles and bracelets. 22 projects that will be hard to choose which one to start with.

These are contemporary designs, no cutesy, no bling bling. Just clean lines and designers pushing your thought process of materials to use. Using broken headlight glass to create stunning sawn shapes for a necklace, using a billard ball to make a ring, dipping felted balls in resin and so on.

Sure there are more of the stock standard creations of making a simple bangle from a mould but there are some wonderful twists to the norm, for instance using paper to create a laminated ring.

If you have to have intricate step by step photos to work from, you will be challenged. This is very much a book that relies on written descriptions of the steps with a few photos. I found no problem with this at all and I am actually a visual learner. But, I do work with these materials already.

My only criticism is the area of finishing. This could have been explored a little further other than sandpapers, files and polishing machines, the later not being something everyone has. Products such as Micro-Surface polishing pads and Micro Glos polishing compounds have produced wonderful results in high gloss finishes without machinery were not mentioned and I am sure there are other products that do similar.

I also loved that every few pages you are presented with a gallery of work. The artists represented here have produced exceptional, varied, luscious pieces, each and every one. I have been drooling ever since I got this book!! There is a nice short bio at the back about the designers and in some cases their websites (thank you) and even a page of templates to use.

This is the first book produced on Resin and Plastic Jewellery that looks at both media in a modern, contemporary manner, that takes you to a higher level of craftmanship, while still managing not to be over daunting. I know my mixed media students will be buying this book in droves. I hope that Lark now goes one step further and produces a book for students on mould making, so they can make even more wonderful pieces in resin.

I bought this book at the same time as some other craft books and I must admit that I haven't looked at it as much as some of the others. The projects are interesting and the finished products look professional. Unfortuntately each step for the projects is not illustrated so you have to read the instructions which can be a bit wordy. Most creative people are visual learners and so step by step pictures for each project are much more useful than long written instructions. Other than that, I think it's pretty good especially as there are not many good books on this subject around.

I am a resin artist and I loved this book. Although some of the projects are geared towards beginners I was able to get some great tips from this publication. The photos are fabulous and inspired me to continue to work with this often overlooked media.

I was so excited to find this book, I thought it would be fun to make a few pieces of jewelry similar to the one on the front cover. However, the necklace on the front cover is NOT one of the projects in this book, but just an image of a piece that the author made. I was VERY disappointed in the projects, they were very ugly. One was even made of plastic drinking straws and plastic bristles from a brush. Who would wear such a thing? It looks like a project a kindergartner would make. There is only 2 or 3 projects in this book that are nice looking enough to want to try. There are however, wonderful images of OTHER artists work, some of which I've seen at art shows before. The book also is fairly good with basic instruction on resins and resin use, but you can get that information from the resin bottles or online. So all in all, this isn't a very good book to learn this craft from. I was extremely disappointed in it, because the cover of the book is so interesting. If I had seen it in a bookstore where I could have reviewed the projects before I purchased it, I wouldn't have purchased it. To me it seems like she wanted to write a book just to add to her resume/artist bio, but didn't want to offer up real art jewelry projects as the cover leads you to believe. What a shame.

As a metalsmith that always wants to try different techniques, this is very helpful. Worth getting.

Who knew you could do so much with plastic and resin. Very helpful info for artists who are suffering the increase in precious metals prices and want to continue to create jewelry.

This book was not what I expected. I really wanted to see more jewelry project using resin.