sculpture adventures

Here are some process pics from my adventures in sculpture class. I have found this class extremely challenging so far. I am definitely out of my comfort zone! My brain is having a hard time coming up with ideas in 3D. But we're learning some fun things. We had a plaster demo a couple weeks ago that involved the instructor pouring plaster into our cupped hands. So now I have a weird looking plaster cast of my hand sitting on my table. I think I would like to try plaster some more, it looks like it could be lots of fun.

Last class we learned how to do a vacuum-form. Really cool stuff. Well I think it's cool. The vacuum-form machine has a metal plate that you put your object on (whatever you want to do a vacuum-form of), and there's a heater on the top of the machine. Inbetween the metal plate and heater there is a slot that you clamp a sheet of special plastic into. Basically the heater heats up the plastic sheet, and when the plastic is hot enough and flexible you pull the plastic sheet down on top of your object. Then you pull up a lever to release the air pressure (?) and it sucks all the air out. And you're left with a plastic shell/container of your object.

For part of my current project I have a hand form/container. So I started by making a clay model of a hand. This was my first time working with clay since junior high, so it's not stellar or anything, but that's okay.


modeling clay

Then once I had the model of the hand, I put it in the vacuum-form machine which created this:


styrene


styrene

ta da! I was scared of using the machine at first, but it wasn't so bad. It was kinda fun.