Between the
piñatas,
living pictures, there is always something in the making in my house. Many of the non-garden ones tend to involve my OH and it is always fun sitting down together talking through ideas.
Some of the current projects revolve around the sea urchins we found
recently. Short of doing some sort of picture, we are still considering what to do with them. One of the things I have always enjoyed is making molds and casts. The shells are very delicate and have an amazing amount of detail and so I have been experimenting with different molds and materials.
I had never tried two part molds before, and still have a few things to tweak. They are getting better though and having tried casting in resin, instead of plaster, helps to stop air bubbles ruining the result. This is the latest attempt, you can just make out the amount of detail in the mold.
There are different stains available for resin, so I can see a whole line of different colours appearing a soon. The other good thing about being able to cast my own shells is that I can make a series for the garden. I think they will look good scattered in among the points.
Really lovely! I think this is a big success already.
ReplyDeleteHave you seen Rachel Whiteread's work casting negative spaces in resin? It sounds peculiar, but on a bigger scale not dissimilar to what you're doing - the spaces under chairs and so on, strangely beautiful.
I think this is a really great way of making the fragile urchins more tactile too.
Thank you. Will have to look up Rachel's work. The casts at present are solid, ultimately I would like to manage a hollow cast so they are exactly the same as the shells. This would really keep the fragile look but allow them to be touched without worry.
ReplyDelete