HYDERABAD: A yellow daisy locked into a pendant. A river streaming across a wooden table. A ceramic teapot with time-frozen droplets. It’s the aesthetics that make these artefacts beautiful but it is the material which makes their coming into being true.
This material is nothing but resin – that crystal clear viscous substance sourced from plants used to design jewellery, furniture, architectural pieces and even crockery.
Many designers and artists have been using this medium for creating their opuses and training future students. That’s how Hyderabad-based artist-designer Marzia Ali has been infusing the material into her works and conducting workshops both for the laypersons and the aspiring professionals.
She shares, “A few years ago after I completed my interior design studies from Hamstech Institute of Creative Education I began exploring resin as a material for various art forms. It takes at least five or six months to understand its properties.” She warns that one has to be really careful while handling the material as even the room temperature in which the same is kept matters. “Even mixing it in a particular way matters. You can’t whisk it clockwise when it’s supposed to be done anti-clockwise,” adds the 22-year-old.
She conducts workshops for the beginners especially on making pendants, rings and earrings. “We make the learners focus on the basic science of resin art in at least two sessions. We also ask them how to do more research if they want to explore avenues in architecture, furniture, jewellery or crockery.” She also gives the learners to watch several videos related to resin art encouraging them to try to create their own designs. While teaching how to create pendants/rings using flowers it’s quite a challenge to use fresh petals. Marzia informs, “Fresh petals contain water that doesn’t go well with certain chemicals and resin. On the contrary, dried petals/leaves don’t pose many difficulties.”
She adds that droplets of epoxy resin can be used on ceramic food-safe crockery items for a different look. The medium can also be used in creating pieces of furniture especially tables or walls.