ARTU 05 Lasting Impressions -- Casting Found Objects

Lasting Impressions -- Casting Found Objects

Price: $95

Mickie McCormic

This full day process workshop is taught in two evenings. You'll learn how to make plaster molds of natural objects, such as fruit, vegetables, seashells, and body parts, or manufactured objects like tools or other household objects, and how to make casts of them with a polymer papier mâché compound. The technique can be used for jewelry components or assemblage parts. There will be samples of different uses in jewelry, altered books and boxes, including a cast of my hand, gilded and put into a niche in an altered book.

You will learn what kinds of objects are suitable for making molds, and how to make a plaster mold from an object and prepare it for casting. Plaster molds are very inexpensive and you can use them with paper pulp, papier mâché, or as push molds for polymer clay. In class we will make casts with a pourable papier mâché compound (Li-qua-ché). You will receive full, detailed instructions for all the processes in a 14-page curriculum, and learn how to make one-part and two-part molds of objects.

Hands-on, you will have a chance to pour and finish several casts of objects made with Li-qua-ché and try out a variety of paints and finishes. (I will have pin-backs available so that small casts can be worn out of the class as brooches.) You will also make a plaster mold to take home, from which you can cast your own objects. We will look at casting with pulp like Celluclay as well as home-made paper pulp, and you will receive a list of materials resources and Web Sites. I will have on hand examples of my own molds and casts -- unfinished casts of objects and body parts, as well as finished casts that have been used in altered books and boxes. I will also bring some masks to show you and other art work made with the methods we are using.

Materials list: I will supply all the casting materials, a selection of objects to make your molds from, and a big selection of paints and finishes .

There is a $9 materials fee payable to the instructor at class time which includes a quantity of Li-qua-ché to take with you and try out at home, enough to make several small casts.