Studio practice

Plaster objects 

So after collecting various objects from Hopkinson’s, charity shops and things I already owned, I had to decide how to re create them, my immediate thought being plaster I knew I had to go about creating moulds. 

I created a gel flex mould for my more robust items and press moulds for my smaller pieces. For my gel flex moulds I first had to fill any holes in my objects with clay so they wouldn’t get stuck in the mould, I got a large sized tin and secured the objects within the tin with clay in the positions I wanted them casting. I had to work with James the technician when prepping and pouring the gel flex due to the safety precautions that need to be taken due to the heat. We cut up the gel flex into chunks and melted it down in the microwaves until pouring consistency and poured it into the tin over the objects until covered and then left it over night to set. The next morning we pulled out the objects and it left really detailed moulds, we were unable to get the bones I had tried to cast out of the gel flex, the heat made them brittle and they snapped off into the mould becoming to sharp to try to remove. I prepped and poured plaster into these moulds multiple times creating a few of each object to give leeway for any braking. My objects set and once I removed them I cleaned them all up with sandpaper. This process went well and I now know not to use bones and gel flex together again. 

For my smaller objects like coins and keys I made clay press moulds. I rolled out a slab of clay and cut it down into smaller slabs with pinched walls and pressed my objects into these slabs. I found out after one failed attempt that my imprints worked better when I put talc on them first, this made the objects easier to remove. I then poured the high density plaster into the moulds and left them to set and again repeated a few times so I had enough to allow for braking. I did have a lot more braking with these pieces due to how fine and small they were, the ones that did work came out great.

I have lost the photos of the plaster objects before I gold leafed them.