Over the last ten days or so, I’ve been playing with cast plaster panels. I used all the techniques I learnt at college to mould, soap, build clay dams, pour and pull a plaster of paris piece. Unfortunately, despite all that work, I completely forgot about overhangs. I ruined both the plaster mould and the panel as I attempted to separate the two with a screwdriver.
Undaunted, though slightly miffed, I went back to the drawing board and tried again. This time I pressed items into a clay slab and took a direct cast from that.
The next challenge was decorating it. Cue layers upon layers of dry brushed acrylic paint, metallic lustres, mica sprays, distress stains and glazes. It’s amazing how porous the plaster remained despite all these layers. I’m fairly happy with the result and hope to build on my experience before a workshop at The Studio, pencilled in for February next year.
Used for this project:
- Cera-mix Standard Plaster of Paris (1kg) [Creativ Company]
- Scola Reinforced Air Drying Modelling Clay
- Royal Talens Amsterdam acrylic paints
- DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics: Quinacridone Gold/Quinacridone Violet
- DecoArt Metallic Lustres: Fab Fuchsia, Silver Spark, Majestic Purple
- DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics Interference: Magenta/Blue
- Ranger Distress Stain: Vintage Photo
- Ranger Distress Mica Sprays: Brushed Pewter, Tarnished Brass
- Ranger Distress Paint: Vintage Photo
gorgeous.. what texture.. love it
Beautiful. I am glad you moved forward with your plan. I know nothing about making cast plaster. Can you suggest a source to play with this?
I can’t give you a source online as I learnt the techniques at college. I’m sure if you look up clay moulds for plaster casting on YouTube you’ll probably come up with something helpful. Essentially, you roll out a slab of fresh clay, press things into it, take them out again, cut to size, put a clay wall all the way round, pour in mixed plaster of paris, leave to set for 30 mins, peel away clay, leave to dry and then decorate. Simples 😉