Having enjoyed the process and results of creating plaster casts from clay moulds I decided to see if I could develop some further pieces. This time at home using some clay and plaster I had bought. I initially wanted to replicate the small constructed shapes that had a resemblance to shanty towns or cave dwellings, depending on which way you presented them. I used the same process of building them up as a negative with layers and pieces that I then cut into and added paths, steps and also blocked off paths at the same time as giving them different levels.
I'm still unsure as to whether thee work stood up, wall mounted or placed on a flat surface. I also wonder if I need to make a lot more to create a 'city' of dwelling shapes. I have taken this style and created a positive to eventually be moulded out of aluminium. We shall see.
I also need to decide if they should remain as raw plaster or would they benefit from being painted. If so how? What colour? With some of my previous casts I painted them white to neutralise them but even that has connotations of purity and the ancient.
After making these I tried again to make a mould of my face using a big slab of clay but it wouldn't take the feature so I made impressions of my beard in the clay and formed a face shape, then cast that.
With the remaining piece of clay I moulded it around my ear, just to see if it would work.
It wasn't until I had cast it that it became even stranger, disembodied, separated. I didn't paint this white. I felt it need to be stronger than that, so I painted it red.
The red gives it more of a bodily feeling, more organish. Maybe I should try other facial parts and just create the parts but not the whole.
While I was casting these I had some plaster left over and I decided see what I could use it with and I found some used latex gloves in the bin, discarded by my daughter after one of her painting sessions. (https://www.instagram.com/indiamaeart/). So I thought I wonder what would happen if I filled them with plaster... Weird things happened. I didn't know where to put them to dry, tried to hang them in the tree which looked very strange, especially as it was dark outside the studio and wouldn't work but it gave me an idea to come back to later. So I just tied them off and laid them on the grass.
The results of this 'experiment' have given me a lot to think about and ideas to take forward.
In my one-to-one tutorial we discussed 'The White Hand'. How it is used in cartoons, especially with these bloated versions, also by mime artists and artists on stage. How they are used to handle precious objects and in art. Why are they white?
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