Going deep into it

Spiral that extends to five or six feet...oingy

Love this blue rose, very thin, ten inches across

 I made some Jell-O right after Christmas just to loosen myself up, and quickly immersed. I had carefully boxed up all the pieces I had made, all the petals and leaves and bits and scraps, and had forgotten what a rich collection I had. Once I dragged them out and started sorting the colors, the joyfulness of it took over.

I bought twelve clear plastic boxes and sorted the pieces by color and type, which greatly reduced the chaos and made me feel like a real artist again. These are my materials. The fun is matching them up and making things...I made flowers. I may or may not make these into fascinators by glueing hairbands to them.

These are 6-12 inches wide

The glueing part is simple: I use melted gelatin for that too. I put a small amount in a half-pint canning jar, and have a couple of tiny spoons to drip it onto the parts to be glued. Then I clamp the pieces together with a clothespin or just hold them together until it gels. I think a full minute is the minimum time to hold them together (tightly) and is usually adequate.

There is a stage of gellation that happens if you let go too soon and the pieces move, a weird stage where the gelatin breaks up into chunks and won't stick together. When that happens the best thing is to remove it and start over. I just dip the piece in the jar and melt the stuff off, or run it under the faucet though here I remind you that is isn't a great idea to drip half-gelled gelatin into your drains, where it will quickly get cold and coat whatever it wants. I picture it staying a long time unless frequent watering melts it off. Jell-O can be very durable. I'm glad I went for the bigger drainpipe sizes all the way downhill.

I've been making a lot of thin boingy things...updating my crown with what will probably be very annoying deelybobbers (I think that is the technical term.) I simply make a spiral cut in a pie plate full of jelled stuff about an eighth of an inch thick. It seems best for me to let the gelatin sit for about 8-12 hours and then flip it over, and with the spirals I carefully wrap them around an overturned bowl to keep the spiral shape but spread it apart so it can dry. It's quite simple though I don't know what practical use I will make of the longer ones. I hung them up to see if they would stretch more over time, and they do. Thicker gelatin would boing and stretch less.

Drying takes about 36 hours in a warm house. I put the pieces on top of the furniture where the most heat gathers in my house. I flip the pieces every 8 hours or so, and during the drying they are bendable and I can manipulate them in all sorts of ways to suit my purposes. If you notice them getting dull and granular, they aren't drying fast enough. They're on the way to getting moldy. Sometimes I remelt them or throw them away at that point, or if they seem close, I put them in a hotter place to finish quickly. The drying time will depend on your atmosphere...when I do it outside in the summer it only takes an hour or less sometimes. So check them every few hours and just flip them over when they need it.

This will be added to my crown

The secret to the thin glassy layers is to swirl the gelatin around in a bowl, glass or smooth plastic, so it evenly coats the inside of the bowl in a very thin layer. In about 6-12 hours it should begin to pull away around the top, or you might help it do that by carefully prying up the edge. If it dries too far and seems like part of the bowl, you can start prying by cutting into the center in the bottom of the bowl where it is thicker and still wet. Then pull gently on it to get it to release from the bowl and let it tear into pieces or come out whole. Then I reverse the bowl and let it dry more on the outside or in a flat disk. Draping it over the edge of a pie plate or dish gives it some nice curves and helps it dry faster. At any point you can spray or brush the drying gelatin with a small amount of water, or just pass it under the faucet and quickly drain it off. It will soak up some water and become pliable again. You can always remelt gelatin and start over, so don't throw it all away in frustration if you are not getting results that excite you.

If I'm getting too technical too fast for you, I pin that on my 26 years of experience...I have to make an effort to quantify and record these details because I forget that most of what I do in Jell-O is instinctive by now. I just settle into the flow state and play with it. It is the most fun thing I do I think. Assembling the pieces into flowers is just an incredibly blissful time for me; I'm continually astonished at the great beauty and randomness of it. I don't know what I'll do with these flowers, I just want to make them. That's how I know I am an artist. Thank you Jell-O.

I'll add some photos to this as soon as my camera recharges. Maybe the sun will come out...sun shining through the layers is really magical.