plaster – A DEAD LETTER

Sculpture – skulls plaster mould.

25 November 202022 October 2021Dead Roses

Sculpture

The post before this shows how I have planned to make a skull and head out of plaster(I have also made a mini clay skull).On Sunday night I made a mould out of tin foil and masking tape, to be able to pure the plaster in.

Making The Mould…..

This is the possess of me making the skull, At first I was only going to make one half and then I decided to do the full skull as I wanted to carry on with the idea of having the mushrooms inside the skull so I going to use this doe skull to carry out that idea.

For this I made sure that the sides would line up and be able to look like a whole skull. My plan is to make a thick plaster that I can put on with my hands to the shape will be hollow, but I don’t know if it will be strong enough.

This was a lot harder to make than I thought it would be but it did end up working and holding shape in the end so after taking off the skull I was really happy with the look of it.

Doing The Plaster…..

These are some photos of the plaster being put into the moulds, at first I really wasn’t sure if it would take the weight of the plaster but it ended up holding really well.

I made one lot of thick plaster that I used my hand to layer onto the mould, next I made a thinner plaster but not much thinner and then I used some rope netting ( ) so I would put the netting into the plaster and then add it onto the dried thicker layer. This would give it a good and strong shape.

I waited two hours to take it out as I didn’t want it to break. it came out with a really good shape. it isn’t perfect but I do think it was better than I thought it would be. the edges are very ruff but I do like this as it makes a natural decay look so I can put the mushrooms inside and you have to look around the sculpture to get to see the insides.

My next post will be me paintings and adding in the mushrooms and other things.

Sculpture – Plants and Emil Alzamora.

21 November 202022 October 2021Dead Roses

Sculpture

I wanted to look into head space within drug use and metal health, as they can be linked, so I was thinking of using mushrooms to show the growth of a mental health but also people link mushrooms to drugs (e.g. magic mushrooms).

Emil Alzamora…..

She is an artist that has made me think of a way to develop my idea and make it a lot more interesting and something I would love to experiment with.

These are some works of her that I found interesting but the one that really caught my eyes was one where she has a human head and had a plant out the top of it..

This image is what gave me the idea of how I could improve and develop my work in to something more interesting and experimental than just a simple sculptor. I still have more ideas than this one but I want to experiment with it to see how well it would work.

When first looking into heads I was thinking of going through a drug like subject but after seeing this it made me think of a better was to show my work, and have the plants roots crack the work. I have a plan for this but ill put it on another post.

so from this next I will be making a plant of how I could now do the ideas of my next experiment. I will also be adding designs and possible images of it.

sculptor – mushrooms

21 November 202022 October 2021Dead Roses

Sculpture

One of my ideas for the head space project within sculpture is drugs and mental health. A lot (not all) people do sue drugs to help them get through depression and other mental health problems but they are not always linked.

I wanted to develop on from what we did in the beginning of this project where we made head molds for plaster and also made a box within woodwork.

Mushrooms (drugs and metal health)….

when I thought about a way to show metal health and drugs i thought of mushrooms first as not only do people connect them to drugs but it growth of mental health. mushrooms can be found on dead trees, these trees are normal hard wood (e.g. oak and beech trees). They are also found on tree stumps and fallen trees/branches.

These are some photos I took that I found inspirational.

My Links To Headspace…..

The mushroom would show how that persons mental health had died and now is growing into something more dangerous. This is through how they grown on dead things and they are normally seen as poisonous. Then they would also link to drugs and this would be involved in making your headspace better as you escape the bad thoughts.

Link Back To Before Induction…..

These are some of my ideas I want to try within this idea and see how each on them work. One of them involved the my box ideas as well.

I want to try this idea with clay and also plaster, I think they clay will work better due to being able to stick things to it better.

introduction – plaster

5 October 202022 October 2021Dead Roses

Using clay and object to create a plaster tile

With in the first week we got inducted into clay and plaster. As we where told to not have our phones, unfortunately I did not get any photos on the process of making this piece. I wish I had.

At first I use a rolling pin to be able to make a square shape from the clay about 5 cm thick. Then I used random materials and object within the room to create shapes, textures and patterns to make marks within the clay. Some of the materials I used was; screws, nuts, pinecones, chain, my finger and more.

When I was happy with this I used a knife to cut out a rectangle about 13cm by 14.5cm. What I cut off I used as walls on the edges of the rectangle. I used slip to make sure that there was no hole, where leaks could get out.

Then I moved on to making the plaster, to make the plaster I added 1.5cm of water into a bowl and I started to sprinkle in the plaster. When sprinkling in the plaster I had to keep going till the plaster would stop dissolving into the water, because its to saturated. This would mean I could count to 10 and the plaster would still sit on the top of the water and be white (instead of a grey-ish colour)

Once it was at this point I used my hand to stir the plaster together and thicken it. When it was at a good consistency, then I poured the plaster into my clay mould. all I had to do then was wait for it to heat up and set. Then when it was ready, I removed the clay and carefully. I used a surform to clean up the edges. I also used a slightly wet tooth brush to clean the plaster tile.

Some prosses of my work…..

The final piece…..