May 2006 Archives

Man, I should have taken a picture of that.

I spent a long time building up this lovely goblin mask on the plaster cast of my face. Then, taking the advice of many people on the internet who are definitely a few cub scouts short of a jamboree, I decided to pour plaster over it and make a mold. This is so I can use the negative to stuff paper mache into and get a nice bit of detail. It's easy, they said. You build a clay box around your piece and pour plaster over it and voila! you've got a nice negative.

They. Are. All. On. Crack.

First of all, I realize that 25 pound box of clay I bought was only $14, but in order to build up a nice "little" wall around the piece it would have use half the box. Um, no. So, I thought, I'll use a real box. So, I placed my "face" with goblin mask in the box on a small damn of clay to keep the plaster from leaking underneath it and sealing it up forever. Then, I treated the cast to keep the plaster from becoming a permanent part of it. Okay, ready, let's begin...

Mixing plaster is messy. Have I mentioned that? It doesn't matter how deep a bucket you use (I'm using a trash can), it will still splash everywhere. I always end up wearing most of it. Then, it's getting the right consistency. Then, you have to make sure to not stir it too much or it'll start hardening on the spoon, so you have to make small batches. Okie dokie, annoying, but no problem.

So, when I started pouring the plaster over the mask and saw the box start to bow outward, I knew the whole flimsy clay wall thing would have probably gone horribly array once the plaster broke free and flooded the kitchen. Good thing I found the box.

Until it started leaking.

It got on the table, the chair, and nearly made a nice mold of the cat. Joy.

I managed to stop the leak and still keep mixing the nasty stuff.

Oh, look, it looks like the box isn't quite tall enough, and now it's worse now that it's warping. Lovely.

After a while I started spooning it out on top of the mask because I knew as it hardened it would eventually cover it. It seemed to work. Cool. Now, to go watch the Top Forty Greatest Metal Songs of All Time.

45 minutes later...

The...box...won't...let...go...of...the...plaster.

Shit.

After ten minutes of tugging, I finally peel the box away, flip the giant chalky block over, and...oh shit, it leaked under the cast. It's partially sealed and won't come loose. Crap.

By this point, I was thoroughly frustrated and realized it just wasn't going to work, so all I could think about was saving the cast so I didn't have to have Todd put plaster strips on my face again and then make jokes about aren't I glad my nose didn't itch.

I grab a screwdriver. I start chiseling. Come on you, bitch, let go!

After about twenty minutes and a monster mess, I take it outside and drop it on the concrete. In a satisfying thud, the plaster cracks in half and my cast comes free. Woo!

I put it all on the table, thinking I can glue the mold back together since it was a clean break. I clean up my mess, wipe the clay off of my face cast, and reach for the plaster mold...

Which apparently was stomped upon by an invisible house gremlin is now in seven unsalvageable pieces.

Well, screw you, too! I curse the gods of plaster and wish vile things upon their jockey straps!

Later, when Todd came downstairs and I related the tale to him, he was sympathetic having seen me try to work this out for two days. (Oh, yes, it started the day before as I tried to get the details down.) He went into the kitchen looking for what I now think he believes is the obvious sign of my insanity. He found a rather clean work space instead. The evil is in the trash, where it belongs. I may have to set the table on fire to purify it.

I learned three things: First, I'm digging the whole clay thing and still love paper mache. Secondly, sometimes doing something just for the sake of knowledge, especially when the current process I'm using works really well for me despite some people complaining it's "harder", is not always a good thing. Thirdly, I should have just stuck to yarn.

Oh, wait, I learned four things. The forth thing I learned is Plaster of Paris is the milky white essence of Satan.

It's very important to know.

On with the paper pulp...

...I'd stick with just fiber arts.

Todd pointed out to me today that none of my hobbies are related. Well, crochet and knitting are, but paper mache? Not so much.

He's right.

I told him I was eccentric.

He said I was weird.

Yeah, well, if I was the evil "N" word, he wouldn't be with me out of sheer boredom.

So, there.

Nyah.

Here's a lesson for you kiddies with more than one unrelated hobby: plaster of paris is nasty messy stuff and that damn 8 pound tub of it you just bought won't go as far as you thought. Now, granted, I didn't know how the stuff worked up and lost at least a fourth of it to the mistake when it started setting while mixing, but it still took another half of the bottle to fill the rather frightening plaster mold of my face.

I hope I only need the general shape and definition and not the details.

Yikes.

Anyway, if your kid/niece/nephew/neighborhood-kid-who-somehow-wandered-in wants to make something out of plaster of paris, give them sidewalk chalk instead. It's easier. Trust me.



This better work, dammit.

We'll find out in about, oh, fifteen minutes.

And, no, I don't have pictures. I don't like taking pictures of half-finished projects because it's like a curse. As soon as people other than Todd see them, something happens and I never finish them, so you'll have to wait...in suspense...you poor dears...



The time passes faster if you have popcorn.


I should have Todd take pictures of me under the plaster. That had to be something my brother's children could tease me about for years to come.

Yeah, so I'm a paper mache-ing fool.

I've got the two masks for a friend in the works, of which I can't do much with right at this moment. I've got a sun mask to be put on a stick drying on the table. It's being difficult and wants the little sun rays to fall off, so it's paper mache ass is going in the oven to be dried. So, there.

And, in a moment of utter weirdness, I have spent twenty minutes of my life with my face covered in plaster. Todd seemed most unwilling to be the guinea pig despite his telling me he would do it, so I let him off the hook, kind of. He got to be the one to cover me in plaster strips. Now, as kinky as it sounds, it was mostly cold, pasty, and a little boring.

It's also hard as hell not to laugh when your boyfriend is telling you funny things while the stuff dries. Also, when he makes comments like, "Is this the part where I cover your nostrils and suffocate you?" and "Hey, kitty, why don't you go lay on Lisa's face." it's amazing how the simple gesture of flipping him off can convey how one feels. It's like a whole universe of curse words in one finger. Beautiful.

So, now the mold of my face, which, despite the vaselline, tried to take my lips with it, is drying and will be filled with plaster of paris so I can make a cast and hopefully that will work to help me make fitted masks. I would still like to cover the Todd in plaster, but after the near loss of my lips and part of my jaw, I'm thinking I might be able to make the casing of my face work. We'll see.

I tell you what, though, it was kind of fun in a weird Curse of the Mummy sort of way. Now, off to make an even bigger mess on the kitchen table.

Oh, by the way, for those who work with paper mache who might stumble across this entry, the Fast Mache instant fast drying paper pulp made by Activa who also makes Celluclay, which you can get at Hobby Lobby, is beautiful stuff. It's more like a soft clay when you add water and it really does dry a hell of a lot faster than the regular instant stuff. I'm planning on hording lots of it unless I can find someone who carries the 24 pound bag.

Yes, I'm obsessed, why do you ask?

Of the mask I finished at least. I haven't finished the second sock, and I hate to separate a pair (I'm lazy) so today, just the mask.

I used a plain plastic mask as a mold, covering it with seran wrap and a little cooking spray and carefully layering bits of paper mache over it and letting it dry. I did the same for the maple leaves over the eyes using a cardboard cut out of a picture of a leaf I found on the net. I only did two layers of paper mache for delicacy. When it was all dry, I gave it a good sanding to smooth it out and keep the shape. Later, much much later because I got lazy, I gessoed the hell out of it. Four coats of the stuff. Then, I painted it with some acrylic and went to Hobby Lobby and found some floral stuff to decorate. The stick is actually one that the berries on the nose came from, happily enough.

So, without further ado, my first paper mache mask. Feel free to cringe.

I don't know, I'm rather proud of it.



As with all things, it didn't quite come out as I envisioned, but I'm not disatisfied.

I want to do more masks. I think I'm hooked on them now. I'm going to do a nice fox for my Todd, but that one will require plaster casts and clay molds and good lord what the hell was I thinking?

We won't even discuss the plague doctor mask a friend wants. I thought I could do it in two weeks. WRONG. He'll get it, but not for a while until I figure this stuff out. Flat masks on sticks are damn easy, really, at least this one was, but fitted masks are a little more complicated. We'll see if I get so frustrated I drown myself in a bucket of plaster.

On the fiber front, I have a nearly finished second in a pair of socks. I'm still turning the mutant first attempt into a sock puppet for the niece because I think she'd probably throw it around the room and squeal. (She's three. It's what she does.) The next knitted project will be a knitted stocking. I'm going to do just a basic tube stocking. I'm experimenting. There is speculation that in the early days of knitting the purl stitch didn't exist, which seems a little weird because then how did they do heels in stockings? But, all the pictures I see of period stockings have no heels and do seem a little more tubish. So, I'm thinking that there is a possibility that most of them were tube stockings. I mean, think about it, people wore the same thing over and over again. After a while, a pair of stockings starts to conform to the shape of your leg, and in tube form, the heel area will take the most strain when worn. It tends to anyway, but when you pull a tub sock on, that's where the fabric is most stretched so it's going to wear even faster. Either way, it gives me something new to try and if it's plausible, then it might explain why they think there was no purl stitch back in the day. Granted, the obvious conclusion would be that most archeologists aren't knitters. That explains how for a time they confused naalbinding (a kind of knitting with one needle) with knitting. I've seen both. There is no comparison. Lara says that it's easy to just stumble upon the purl stitch so there is a very good possibility the theory of no purl stitch in the early days is a crock of shit. I'm thinking she is probably right, but I'm still going to try the tube stocking thing, just to see what I get.

Besides, I get silk stockings out of the deal, man. Who am I to argue with knitting for science? Or whatever.

Anyway, I'm back and will be posting more regularly. There will be pictures. They may be of me crying into a vat of gesso, but there will be pictures.

Now, to go and paper mache myself to the table then wonder about what drives me to this in the first place.

Okay, I haven't been around. Again, I apologize. I have been a mask-making fool, in that I finished one mask. Mine. There are pictures. They should be on the computer, but they are still on the camera because the laptop that has the ability to extract said pictures is...busy...right now. Don't ask.

I am almost finished with my full pair of socks. I hope to be finished this weekend. Can I get a woo for that?

I look to start on Todd's mask this week. I'm not even sure how I'm going to pull a fox out of paper mache, but damn if I'm not going to try.

I hate to say this, but I tend to cycle through my many hobbies. It just so happens most of my hobbies are yarn related. However, I am thinking I might have cycled back into paper mache. We'll see. If it's a true cycle, I'll start on the next mask or thing. If it isn't, I'll go to the yarn shop. We'll see what the week brings.




Did I mention I'm very proud of this mask? Woo! Pictures as soon as the laptop becomes less...busy...