21st June
After an early night I was late to rise – almost twelve hours of glorious sleep, I think! I had a pretty cruisy morning of training (I kept my earwarmers on it was so cold), finally posting my work Beyond Chrysalis back to its owner – lent for the Paracosm exhibition, and a little op shopping. Back home, I had another crack at casting – I was not going to take this failure! (Yesterday I finally admitted defeat with the first try, and cracked it off the plasticine in a thousand pieces). Today, I did a bit of googling on mix ratios for dental plaster, and came up with one vastly different to what was on the bag.
The plasticine had been in the sun and was so was nice and warm and soft for rolling out, and I used these lovely pieces to imprint deeply into it. I think they are what is called the ‘holdfast’ or thallus, that keeps kelp clinging to its chosen base. I made the new mix, and made a bit more than last time, so it would be a decent thickness as well. Well, within minutes it was exothermic and hardening – a very good sign! There were of course, little squeals of delight as I unpeeled it to reveal the mould.
For the next one I wanted to try some actual kelp, and I am thrilled with the detail of the texture that has been captured. The final one currently curing is another piece of kelp, with an imprint of a sponge behind it in the corner.
I am relieved that this hasn’t just turned out to be an expensive mess, and think it’s a great form of record keeping and art at the same time.
With the end of my time here nearing, I tidied up a bit today, and took photos of some of the treasures I have collected. A good job I did – some of them crumbled when I pressed them into the plasticine – they weren’t as sturdy as they looked.
