Finished Mask!!

I know, I know, it's been a while and I've been neglecting my blog. But you know what they say - better late than never... Not sure that will apply to my 9th May deadline so I had to put the blog on the back burner!

So, since you last saw the clay face I built up a ModRoc wall around it so I could fill the bowl shape with plaster. I had to build it up in layers and it took FOREVER (when I say forever I mean about an hour - I was just being impatient at the time). The reason its so deep is because it had to come past the nose so that it could be completely covered by the plaster which would then form my mould.

This is the head covered in plaster... Pretty dull photo and pretty self explanatory but at least you can say you've seen it ;)

Once the plaster was completely dry (left it about a week while I swanned off to Venice) I peeled the ModRoc off from around the edges and laid the flat surface you can see in the photo above on the work top so that I could pull the head out of the mould.

Richard was worried that it wasn't going to work as the last head he pulled out of a mould went wrong so I was pretty nervous also! But, we managed to get it out!! When I say we I mean myself, Richard and Alistair - Alistair being the muscles of the operation. Actually... when I say we... I was just watching...










Now the head was out in one piece nothing could really go wrong now. The clay needed to come out next and once I got it away from the edges it came out pretty easily.

This is my mould. Its a negative version of the clay moulding that I did. You can se in the photo that its still got bits of clay and plaster in it so Mr. Richard suggested I do a latex version of it to a) clean the mould out and b) to use in my exhibition as I wouldn't be able to use the gelatin one. He's full of good ideas... not all the time, but most the time.










   


LATEX STINKS!!! Just sayin'! As I was going to use this mask for my exhibition I mixed yellow and blue acrylic to get a green shade which I then mixed in with the latex. I also used a slightly darker shade for the nose so that it wasn't all the same colour.

I painted on about 4 layers of latex leaving each one to dry after I painted it. This was just to build up the thickness of the mask so that it would be strong enough to stay in one piece.

I peeled away the latex just as I had done the clay. The white stuff you can see is talcum  powder - we used this so that the latex didn't stick to itself. Pretty nifty little tip if you ask me!!




Et Voila!! One latex Grinch mask!

I have yet to cut the mouth out but LOOK HOW AWESOME IT IS!! I'm really really happy with it.

I'll try and keep you updated a little better than I have been recently! 3 weeks and 2 days to go and so so much work to do!!