Tuesday, 24 November 2015

Experimentation


October 2015

Past few weeks I have been trying to get a good face cast to make a mold from for an idea I had. I wanted to make lace/messy fabric cast masks using dissolvable fabric and cotton stitches. The mask symbolizes how people put up a front for others, maybe a smile or wearing make up to cover the face and ones true self.

So far this has been unsuccessful because I haven't got what I wanted out of the casts yet, I need to create a deeper face and better barrier to achieve the idea I have. And the stitching isn't as thick as I would like, so I have bought bigger needles, cotton and wool to experiment with and hopefully get the desired look.

The lace did not turn out the way I wanted and I tried different ways but with no success. I decided to take on different ventures instead, maybe I will return to this idea but for now I'm working on other things.

Although I haven't created what I wanted yet, I do like the cast off's of the Mod-roc, they are like covered faces. I tried painting one of them, to make it look dirty and to see what it would look like but I'm not as keen on that one, I prefer the white ones, makes them seem eerie in away.



















November 2015

Felting


I have made some felt from scratch the other day, which might be useful eventually within my art.







Mod-Roc casts

After finding the Mod-Roc face cast off's interesting, I have decided to try other parts of the body, thus far I have done leg, foot, arm and hand.









December 2015

More Mod-Roc casts


Continuing with the bandage body parts, I decided to try cast my torso with the help of my mother (never again, she nearly blinded me with Mod-Roc dust). It didn't turn out the way I would of like as we run out of Mod-Roc stripes. It was not structurally sound, the weight of the chest part bent and warped everything, next time I know to add more Mod-Roc evenly and maybe get someone else to help me.





Wire work

After seeing someone else's wire dress today, it inspired me to start trying wire to produce body parts. I have begun a hand/arm in wire. 





Late December 2015

I had my tutor help me with casting my body, after the disaster of my mothers help. I now have a body piece I can work with and add other limbs too eventually.








Castings of my upper arm to continue my full bandaged body cast.








My bay 2015





Dec/Jan 2015/16

I started thinking about displaying my flaw casts which I have collected lately, I decided to revisit a way displaying I researched a few years a go and was interested in. It was specimen jars, I was always been fascinated by them, so I thought it would be a good way to showcase the casts I have created. So far I have teeth, hands, nose and chest to experiment with, below is a few pictures of the work and experimentation. 



















January 2016

I have purchased a glass display cabinet to go with the specimen jars of flaws, I have been creating lately, which will be showcase in an exhibition on the 28th of January. I have yet to experiment with the visual aspects of it, what and where things will be placed etc.. But hopefully it will all come together soon.


January 28th

Exhibition

I think the display cabinet works rather well, although I could have a play with lighting the jars to make it more visually appealing.







February/March 2016

I have experimenting with different ways of displaying and creating more casts to do so.









April /May 2016

I am exploring different places put the lighting on the glass cabinet and jars, I bought a battery powered light because there is no plug socket near and it would make the piece untidy if I had wires hanging out of it. After careful consideration of where best to place the light, I decided to have it at the back, as this gives better lighting to the piece. Although I'm not 100 percent happy with this, I'm considering getting another light for the front to fully illuminate the piece.






I have been experimenting with taking photographs of my families flaws on my new Polaroid camera, as i'll be using it in my final piece. It is a little hard to get the right position sometimes but I think I have got the hang of it now. I do like the visual appeal of them looking armature, as it displays that the object/body part is not perfect, I'm considering how I'll exhibit them, I have a few ideas such as a cork board or have patch on a wall. I did order a black vintage style framed cork board, as it has an appeal of a old picture/ art frame, I want to see how displaying it this way will look.


Practice photographs




Cork board with pictures








May 2016

I started creating tags, I tried different ways of doing this but my printer wouldn't work with such small pieces of card. So I ended up printing the table and writing on paper, then cutting and sticking it to the tags. I also experimented with making them have an old appearance using a wet tea bag and sprinkling a few coffee granules over it, which is a technique I learnt as a child. I might use these tags to label my jars for my final piece, on it I will have the name, age, sex etc.. of the person's flaw. 


Practice tag 


Using aging effect



I recently made a new flaw cast to add to my collection, my brother's girlfriend does not like her feet. I did all the usual prep and made a mold with Alginate, then poured plaster in it. It did not work out as planned, as I did not get good enough detail of the flaw, so I will be doing another one in a bigger container. Also I was carrying a load of things upstairs and put the plaster foot in my pocket but I forgot about it and sat down. Which was a big mistake I ended up snapping a toe off, so moral of the story is, do not carry casts in your pocket.

Foot casts




I've gone on to make more foot casts, eventually I produced one that I was happy with and will be using in my final piece. 



Foot cast and it in a jar





No comments:

Post a Comment