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By Dawson List  Sometimes, when they see my photos of certain sculptures (like the dragon shown), a person will ask, “How did you get the color in the ice?” They seem to think that the color emanates from the ice itself, instead of the lighting. Now certainly, some ice IS colored, but that kind of ice has a popsicle look to it because part of the coloring process eliminates the transparent quality of the ice. For the most part, to color ice and still maintain its transparency, you need to use colored lighting.
So where do you get the colored lighting? The easiest and most flexible option is to use white lights and color it with lighting gels. The lighting gels are available in a very wide color range (see a few of the colors in the photo below) and you can usually get them from lighting companies that work with the theater or film industry. I’ve found that the gel sheets go for $7 or $8 each in our area. The sheets are about 20”x24”. So far, I’ve seen three different major brands of gel: Roscolux, Apollo, and Lee (not shown below). Samples of the gels come in the little numbered swatch books that you see below, so that you don’t have to spend as much time going through the gel sheets themselves, looking for the right color. Aside from lighting, the gels are great if you need to insert color inside your ice, such as for logos or other designs. Much like the colored sand and gelatin methods, you can add a precisely cut gel from the back of the sculpture and hold it in place by packing snow in behind it. You can also sandwich gels between two pieces of ice; the gels are thin enough so that they don’t usually interfere with the welding process, as long as there’s enough ice around them to weld securely (see the picture at the bottom). About the Author Dawson List: I’ve been working as an ice sculptor full time for more than 11 years and Chef Victor Rede got me started carving ice over 19 years ago at a small Radisson Inn in Albuquerque, NM. Along the way, I’ve been fortunate enough to meet and learn from some of the world’s best ice sculptors, including Mark Daukas, Aaron Costic, Junichi Nakamura, Erik Cantine, and Dean Carlson (not a complete list.) I’ve tried to take in as much knowledge as I could and tried to incorporate my own ideas as well. For me, an added bonus of this site is that I am forced to reexamine my methods and seek out new ones; so I learn while I share information. Visit Dawson website: www.icedragonice.com
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