Plaster and twins.

During the last week of the mid-tri break I got quite involved with plaster, I was trying to make an easy yet interesting mould that would produce at least two nearly identical objects; twins.

First I needed plaster. I bought 5KG of the stuff from Bunnings for $10 brilliant! Then I needed water. Mix it up and you have wet plaster ready to pour into your pre made mould.

 









Left: I made a small box out of ply wood offcuts. I hammered nails through one side of the ply to indent the plaster cast. Using more nails I set the box in place. My first 'twin' used normal plaster and came out as a nice cube with four holes through it. The second 'twin' was made by mixing plaster and red dye to make its overall appearance pink. 

 
 



 Right: I wanted to make a mould out of plaster, to do this I set four small pieces of ply into a similar ply box. The plaster set perfectly but I couldn't release the ply from the plaster. It ended up smashing and being a lesson in what plaster sets to but doesn't let go of.

  

 

As I was working with balloons a natural progression to see what else I could use as a mould was condoms. The condom is much more stretch than a balloon. Instead of the shape I thought it would take the plaster formed a shape I can only describe as breast-like. As the pink of the plaster suited its form well.

 I made a mess at times with plaster becoming dried on the work bench.

 Left: My second 'twin' made with pink plaster.

 

I began
experiments with balloons. First filling the balloons with plaster, then squeezing the balloons in different ways.

 The purple balloon had a ribbon tied around its middle, this made a shape similar to that of a pear.

The aqua balloon was held in place using two clamps. Each positioned in a different direction. The result is a very unnatural shape.

 The colourless plaster appears fairly lifeless in comparison to the brilliant shapes that were produced.

In another material exploration  I filled a rubber glove with plaster. I placed a hammer on it as weight so that as it dried the fingers were full.

 

Here is my photo for the weekly task, on small plinths are my two twins and the breast shaped cast. The most interesting shape I made.