Jesmonite zebras

Using the idea I developed from my badges I decided to use up the waisted animal bums to produce animal halves that interchange, so you can have a sheep head with a cow bum etc. In order to do this I needed to cast the heads before I used them, and make them in attractive plastics to enable the mix and match animal toy.

Because of the nature of the mould and the fact that I didn't realise the limitations of it I chose an object that won't cast very well.

Here I tried to use the gold powder on the inside of the mould to bring out the detail of the zebra.

Some of the issues I have been having is that the zebras are really fragile, the ears break off quite easily and so I haven't been able to get a full perfect cast.

I've tried many different methods, painting into the mould to ensure that the ears and legs come out fully formed. I've also tried casting in two halves, and casting in halves and using jesmonite to join.

When doing this cast the mixture was too dry and so this caused an air bubble to form between the layers.

In this cast the two halves of jesmonite cracked before I poured the middle layer, this was also unsuccessful.

I considered using the dremel to hollow out the leg area, these results weren't very good though because of the detail was erased when using this. I am still going to try cutting them in half and making my initial idea, just to see what its like. But I think now that the best idea is to do my idea but just with interchangeable heads and the shop bought bodies. I think the contrast between a block colour of the head and the multicoloured natural body that will look really good.

Fun on the farm...

This week we had a project to make brooches that represent our selves to then wear at a tea party. I decided to go with the theme of past, present and future to represent different aspects of my life, representing where I come from and where I want to go in the future.

From this I decided I really liked the cow brooch. I thought it might be a good idea to get rid of some of the plastic toys I had left over to make some different brooches to sell on my etsy shop.

Look out for them soon on my shop! And also some Christmas decorations coming soon..... www.etsy.com/shop/BeciMay