We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Melissa Renee a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Melissa, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I’ve taken lots of college level art courses but none of them prepared me for working with resin. A random acrylic pour video on Youtube led me down a rabbit hole where I discovered resin art. I watched countless videos from various artists for about 3 weeks until I gathered the courage to purchase all of the materials needed to get started. I had no idea how much I would love working with it. My only regret is not having found it sooner.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I began my career in the beauty industry and consider it my first love. Not only have I worked behind the chair as a color specialist, I educated for a major hair color company throughout the US as well. Most recently I worked as a National Sales Manager for a startup beauty company where I was given creative freedom to help develop the company logo, color and packaging choices, and new product development. Eleven months after launching our first product, it won the Behind The Chair Stylist Choice Award for Favorite New Styling Product. I have a business side to me as well as a creative side. On the DISC personality profile I am dominant / conscientious with a core of creativity. I refer to myself as a California-born artist with roots in the south. Growing up between two worlds, I was shaped by country living, and sunny days spent at the beach in Southern California. The ocean captivated my heart, inspiring the name fiery for deep blue. My love of the water is expressed in my ocean resin paintings on wood panels. Although resin seascapes make up a large portion of the work I do, I also love to work with other mediums such as watercolor, oil, and acrylic. Creating contemporary pieces with the addition of glitter, metallic, and a bold color palette provides a nice contrast to my serene pieces. My primary media is resin on museum grade wood panels. The glossy finish of resin is the perfect medium to capture reflective properties. I begin my process by priming a wood panel then using spray paint, I mark out the flow I want to emphasize onto the board. The base color is important since it helps to support the vibrancy of the colored pigments that I choose to mix in with the resin. Working with a two-part epoxy resin, I mix various inks, pastes, micas, and powdered pigments in. The varying weights of the pigments interact differently causing some to sink to the bottom and others to float to the top. A torch and heat gun are used to manipulate and move the resin around the board. Since resin begins to harden as soon as it’s introduced to heat, I work quickly to manipulate the resin by looking for balance through color and form. Each piece requires multiple layers of resin to achieve depth and dimension; therefore, it can take up to several weeks to complete a painting.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is the internal satisfaction that comes from the creative process.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

As a former employee of Loreal Professional, we were asked to read a book titled, “Hug Your Customer”s, The author went to great lengths to make every customer feel special. His love for people and the joy it brought each customer really impacted my entrepreneurial spirit.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.fieryfordeepblue.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/fieryfordeepblue

Image Credits
John Philpotts Best Framing