Sharing the Skinny... Molding Acrylic Paint Skins for Mold Rubber Monday by Sandra Strait

Did you know that you can make a skin with acrylic paint? You pour out a layer of liquid acrylic paint onto a non-stick surface and just let it dry. Once it has, you can peel it off, and then glue this 'skin' onto whatever artwork you wish.

I was curious...

Would acrylic paint take on shape if you poured it into a mold?

Yes, indeedy, it will!

One of the things that a design team does is experiment so we can share some do's and don'ts with you. I'm calling this an experiment in progress because I had a few surprises, and will need to do more experimenting to get the process down pat.

I decided I wanted to do a Zentangle® style pattern, so I decided to use some Sculpey oven-bake clay. I don't have an oven to dedicate to baking clay, so I just used the clay as is, and didn't worry about keeping the finished piece. That was the reason I decided to go with Amazing Mold Rubber instead of Amazing Mold Putty. The Amazing Mold Rubber is a liquid you pour over your objects rather than pushing it in, so I wouldn't mess up the soft clay.

There are videos and written how-to instructions at the Amazing Crafting Products site that can help you decide which is the right product for your project. CLICK HERE for video on Amazing Mold Rubber preparation.

I rolled some of the clay into a long rope.

You need something to hold the Amazing Mold Rubber so I used an old plastic cookie container (I only ate the cookies so I'd have the container. Honest! I hated every bite, but suffered for my craft!)

I cut the rope into strings and curled them into the pattern I wanted, placing each section into the bottom of the plastic container.

Amazing Mold Rubber comes in two parts; a base and a catalyst. You get measuring cups and a scoop.  It takes two ounces of base to one scoop of catalyst if you are doing a smaller mold. My clay pattern was fairly large, and I had made a different pattern in the other half of the container (which I'll write up for another day), so I mixed the whole kit together and made two molds.

I thought I goofed up at this point. I wasn't sure how easily the plastic or the clay would be to remove from cured Amazing Mold Rubber but I forgot that I was going to cover everything with Petroleum Jelly. I'd already started mixing when I remembered, and I had to do it quickly. I wasn't sure if I'd evened it out enough and was worried it would interfere with the detail.

The container was beveled so I poured

to just a little above the beveled edge.

I let the sit for a few hours before taking it out. It did look as though I had lost some detail on one side.  (And I apologize – I forgot to photograph the mold before pouring, and had to do it after, so there are bits of paint in it. I don't want to clean them out because I'm going to see if I can pick them up in another acrylic skin)

Nonetheless, I poured in some Golden's Fluid

Acrylic Iridescent Gold Fine paint.

I want to discuss what I was expecting. I've made acrylic paint skins, just pouring them onto my non-stick mat. They usually took a few hours to cure completely. When I pull them off my mat, I usually lose some pieces around the edges, and sometimes it stretches.

To be generous, I gave this pour some 30 odd hours to dry. The shocker was that it wasn't fully cured. The edges had dried and were even crumblier than I expected, so I lost almost all the edging. The piece tore where it was still wet, but I was able to coax most of it up.

Surprisingly, almost all the detail was there. It got a little rough around the wet areas from being pulled out too soon. But even the area that seemed shallower in the mold provided good detail.

So what to do with it. I had this journal page I was working on. The photo is from a local tea garden and I thought the gold pattern a good match to frame it with (all those colors are from H20 Twinks watercolor, and unfortunately, this is one of the times when the scan is better! You can barely see the colors in real life).

I poured glue onto the back of my skin

and glued it onto the page next to the photo. 

Then I glued all the broken bits and pieces. Lastly, I painted on some more of the Golden Iridescent Gold Fine to smooth out the edges around the photo.  

In conclusion, I think using the Iridescent Gold Fine was part of my problem. It has mica in it, which probably added to the crumbliness. I've never made a skin with this kind of paint before, so I'm going to try it and see if that's the case. However, I've already started another mold using Golden's Fluid Primary Red and Primary Yellow. After two days, the Primary Red was fully cured, but the Primary Yellow was not. I think each color is going to be different, and that there is something in the interaction with either the Amazing Mold Rubber or with the Petroleum Jelly (my money's on the Petroleum Jelly) that slows down the drying time.

ALL THE MORE SKINS TO EXPERIMENT WITH!
I'LL BE BACK WITH MORE!

To explore all the products that are available,
please visit the Amazing Crafting Products website.

For more of my work in Amazing Mold Putty, zentangle-inspired art, and daily links to tangles, tutorials, and giveaways please visit my "Life Imitates Doodles" blog.

~ Sandra Strait

What have you made during
your Cre8time lately???

Join us each Monday for Mold Rubber Mondays – where we will share projects and inspiration using this fabulous product available at Amazing Crafting Products!

 • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Don't forget to subscribe to our blog on the right side bar:

Twitter at AmazingCrafting | Facebook at AmazingMoldPutty | YouTube at AmazingMoldPutty