In yesterday's workshop with Deborah, I began making pillars for my final sculpture. I first had to create a model of a pillar so that I could create a mold; which would make every pillar Identical. I needed my clay  and rolled it out so that it was ready to be used. I then drew the Shape  of the pillar that I wanted to use and cut the shape out of clay. Once my model was finished i used half a cup of plaster for every one cup of water used. All together, I used 3 cups of water and 1 and a half cups of plaster to create the mold. I had to mix these together until there were no lumps of plaster on the mixture and until it began to get thick enough to pour over the model. Once this had been mixed together, I had to put the model onto a piece of board and place 4 other boards around it, making sure it was secure by rapping string around it, so that the mixture wouldn't leak out. I then pored the mixture over the model and had to wait around 20 to 30 minutes for the mold to fully set.

When the mold had fully set, I then had to role out clay to place inside the mold; to create the final pillars. The first mold was done by Deborah, so that she could show me how to do it properly.

 

once Deborah had shown me how to do this properly I had to repeat this process 12 times so that if any were to explode in the kiln as they were being fired, then I would have 2 spare. After I had created all 12 molds  I then had to go round all the edges with a wet toothbrush to score it, and roll a piece of long clay to place on the top, so that the pillar to be placed on top would fit on better. I then used slip to seal the gap between the 2 pillars, so that they would be strong enough to stay together.

I really enjoyed this workshop, I only had one complication when I was

creating the pillars, however it happened multiple times; the clay would break quite easily if I didn't do it thick enough, there fore I had to either add more clay or redo the mold, which effected my time management, therefore I had to stay behind to finish them so that I didn't fall behind.