Friday, March 25, 2011

plaster!

I have this awesome plaster project.

I'm sure my students could offer their own descriptors for the plaster project, but you have to remember that they have no idea all the things they are learning from it. And while they are working like plaster sculpting machines this weekend to meet the deadline I thought I'd share some images of the chaotic plaster pouring day.

All the good photos were taken by Lara Hammond. I took the bad ones.

The pouring day forces everyone to work in close proximity to one another. Ashley "The Wisk" is mixing plaster in the kitty litter bucket.

The Wisk and Keara



The Wisk and Corey the commercial superstar. The Wisk turns up in so many photos because she mixed like a pro.....earning the name "The Wisk".

Andre in his plaster covered socks

Pouring the plaster. I think that's Rion and Adri?

Alexandria and Lara


Anne and her mold. Each student created a sketch for a design and then created a cardboard mold for the plaster.

Kai-lan and Colleen

We mix enough plaster for 3 molds at a time and pour as quickly as possible.

And just like you'd expect....the cardboard and duct tape molds leak a bit. Everyone has to help out....there are parts of 4 different people in the image above.

Abby in stripes with the funnel.

This looks like an insane process and you'd think that everything would fall apart and that none of the designs would work.
But you'd be wrong. OK, the process is a little crazy but all of the forms yield some close relative to the original design. Generally the students end up with something much more interesting and stimulating than they were hoping. That's when they find out this is just the halfway point of the project.

3 comments:

Daniel said...

I'll never forgive you/thank you enough for this project.

Unknown said...

Is that a Duke's Mayonaise bucket I see?

e-sketchbook said...

Daniel...I still tell students the legend of your project. The plaster has not "gone Romo" since then.

Ginger...pickles, mayo and kitty litter buckets. All oddly sticky on the outside.