Thalassiosira above and Dinopysis below! These creatures live in our gulf waters! Unlike the real thing, if you bump into these sculptures you will probably notice! This Diatom and dinoflagellate  are tiny! To give you an idea of what 20 μm is, lets look at this Thalassiosira in ft…….0.000065617 ft!!! Too small to see with the naked eye… or most amateur microscopes!

The sculptures are finally coming to life! Having never worked with molds and only a little with clay and resin this has been a lot of trial and error! I am currently playing with fiberglass resin, polytek easy-flow plastic and the home depot table top resin. I thought I would play with them until I settled on one… instead I am starting with the fiberglass resin (just a little to fill the grooves) then painting on the easy flow (this makes it super bubbly… but the resin thinly and evenly distributes and dries hard and fast). Then I am painting the whole thing with thinned out acrylic and finishing with a coat of the table top resins……

at least, that is the system for now

If any of you have favorite resins, tips or warnings please let me know through my contact at http://www.pippinprint.com

Here is what I started with…. and then the carnage after!

I am still trying to cast the 3-D bits that come off the top. Im having trouble getting those to set up… but soon a completed one will exist.

Here I am with Courtney and Jinx trying to gather phytoplankton in the pond at A Studio in the Woods. I’m going to the lab tomorrow to see what resides in our backyard pond water!