How To Get A Smokey Look in Your Resin

Have you ever wondered how to get that smokey look in your resin art? Well, I'm here to explain it step-by-step.

An example of the smokey effect is shown here:

To begin, this tutorial is assuming you are aware of the safety measures needed to be done before doing anything with resin.

In the end, this is what I ended up making:

In order to achieve this look, you will need the following materials:

- Epoxy Resin

- A mold

- Alcohol Ink

- A separate cup (I use a Dixie cup)

- Toothpicks

Optional:

- Silicone release

- Heat gun

- Additional objects to add in resin

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Step #1

Preparing the resin

1:1 ratio of resin in separate cups

Pour out some resin. My resin is a 1:1 ratio, though some may be different. Then, combine the two into one cup and mix slowly for about 2-3 minutes until the resin is clear.

Step #2

Alcohol ink

Now that you have your resin prepared, this is where your extra cup will come in. Pour a little bit of resin into this cup. Then, I use white (Blanco Blanco) alcohol ink from the Pinata brand and drip 1-2 drops of ink into the resin. Next, with a toothpick, mix in the alcohol ink and resin to create a solid white color (or whatever color you are using).

Step #3

Pouring the resin

Short and simple. Next, you pour the rest of the resin into the mold of your choosing. I am using 4x4in circular silicone mold.

This would also be an ideal time to use a heat gun to pop those bubbles!

Step #4

Getting the Smokey Effect

This is where the effect comes in. You want to take the cup with the colored resin and just scoop some out with the toothpick and create glob steaks around where you want the effect to take place.

Next, you take either the same toothpick or a different one and start swirling them through the resin. Make sure you are pushing the toothpick throughout the whole mold, for example, I am swirling the toothpick against the back of the mold along of swirling it on the top of the resin; this adds depth. Feel free to add more globs and steaks of the colored resin if you didn't add enough the first time. In the end, it should look kind of like a marbled pattern.

Then there's your smokey pattern! The rest of this is my choice of adding additional objects to the coasters.

I use the following objects for the rest:

- Dried Roses

- Gold Foil

- Glitter

Step #5

Adding Gold foil

To continue, I proceeded to use tweezers to put gold foil in a line in the middle of the coasters and sprinkle a little bit of glitter on top of it.

Step #6

Adding Flowers

Now, before adding any kind of flower to your resin art, always make sure it is COMPLETELY dried out. If it is not, your flower could mold inside of the resin and start to turn a brown color.

Then, the very last thing I do is push the flowers and gold into the resin with a toothpick.

The final uncured piece looks like this: