Moulds and Time-lapses

I went to Butley again yesterday to work for Laurence. In the morning I helped to strap moulds that were going to be poured in the afternoon. This involves putting large amounts of scrim dipped in plaster onto the outside of the moulds, so that they don't burst from the huge pressure when the bronze is poured into them. On the larger pieces you also have to attach long blocks of wood to the outside, as the build up of pressure is much higher in the bigger sculptures. This takes time and effort, especially when there are many moulds to strap.

When that was finished the moulds were cleaned out and placed in the sand to be poured. Lids are also placed on top to reduce the amount of grit and dirt that's going to get in to the moulds. 

After lunch I was able to do my own work, so I started to make a large mould made from wood that I'm going to pour on Friday. Whilst I was making it I didn't quite realise how big the mould was, about 50cm3, which will require about three bucket loads of wax, which is quite exciting. I'm hoping to pour it on Friday, so that it cools over the weekend and I can open it up either on Monday or Tuesday. If the mould works well I really want to make another two part mould, so I can create a bunch of large scale plaster pieces in a range of colours. 

Today I was going to go to Butley again for a bit to pour the mould and do some more work but the day slightly got away from me. I did however go and check up on one of my sculptures, which was as exciting as ever to see it still standing there. I also started to think a little bit about colour, and the use of it within the sculptures that I'm creating. I began to go down the route of emotions again, but I felt that that may be a little too close to my last project, so I decided for now that the different colours are just going to be there to be aesthetically pleasing. This will give the viewer a window into what colours I do and don't like, as well as allowing them to reflect on whether they think the different colours work well.

Over the past few days I've also discovered the "time-lapse" feature on my IPhone, allowing me to turn a 20 minute video into a thirty second one. I think it's a really interesting tool that I intend to experiment with. Here's one of my early clips:

Tomorrow I'm going to be weeding under solar panels again, so hopefully it won't be too warm and I'll get to spend the day listening to interesting podcasts whilst doing some manual labour.

I've also started watching a really interesting program called Mr Robot, which features a lot of ideas surrounding computer hackers in the modern age and the slow degradation of the human mind.

Daily Snapchat: