Art Alley: April 2014

Our MMS 8th graders continue exploring the world of special effects as we shift gears from 2-D makeup to 3-D prosthetics.

Usually in the mold making industry the sculptor would create a face cast of its model. To stay within our budget we were limited in creating plaster mask forms of each of the students. This method sacrifices detail of the model but for our objective the plaster form worked adequately.

CREATING THE FACE CAST (on a budget)

This is an example of our students applying plaster gauze to the models face.

After the plaster form dried, the students drew main characteristic of their animal onto the plaster forms to prepare for clay application. They used their animal research for visual information.

CREATING THE CLAY POSITIVE
The students then began applying clay, building up the areas that were needed to convey the animal characteristics. Below are a few examples.

CREATING THE PLASTER MOLD
After detail was added to the clay positive, plaster was added to create the negative (the mold).
I prepared a thin mixture of plaster and the students began adding this to their masks. The thin mixture gets into all the nooks and crannies of the clay. This process is done slowly at first so the plaster doesn't run off the clay. The students worked slowly as they built up the plaster. Their goal was to have a 3/4-1" layer of plaster.

This is a sample of how the plaster mold looks. If the clay positive has a high point (like a large protruding nose) we added plaster gauze strips to the outside of the plaster mound for safe measures.

The next day the plaster mold was turned over and the students began taking out the clay positive. They worked carefully not to cause scarring or scratching on the inside of the plaster mold.

This mold is cleaned out and ready for the latex application. Can you tell what animal it is?

POURING THE LATEX (latex positive) Watch the video to see this process.

The latex is beginning to dry.

This is an example of the latex completely dry. Usually by 24 hours the latex is dry enough to be removed from its plaster mold.

PULLING THE LATEX FROM THE PLASTER MOLD

Pulling the latex from the plaster mold is so exciting! The students have worked hard up to this point so it is a huge reward for them to see the fruits of their labor.

Chimera (/kɨˈmɪərə/ or /kaɪˈmɪərə/The term chimera has come to describe any mythical or fictional animal with parts taken from various animals, or to describe anything composed of very disparate parts, or perceived as wildly imaginative or implausible.

When Jenette Noe (aka Miss Noe), our student teacher extraordinaire, and I were brainstorming a creative project to facilitate our goal to introduce Photoshop to our 6th graders, she came up with a fantastic idea using the concept of chimera. The project met our curriculum goals and the students had a fantastic job creating their chimeras.

The first image is the chimera created by Miss Noe. She is very practiced in Photoshop and did a fantastic job creating her chimera to show as an example to the class.