Mold making time!

Here are images of the mold-making process for the man/woman sculpture I posted previously. This is a plaster "press" mold or slip cast mold. These pictures document only one half of the "clam-shell"----there are in fact two halves.

I will be using this mold to press clay into and create "terra cotta" reproductions. 

Here is the clay wall I built around the figure: (Note the indents I poked in the clay to create interlocking "keys" between the two mold halves) 

The splatter coat comes first. This is my favorite! I love the ceiling texture effect. I think I'll employ this in a finished sculpture very soon:

Plaster layers building up. I think I'm in love all over again. It's at times like these I realize that plaster is my medium. It forces me to be loose with texture and experimental with form. I like this mold as it is!

 Peeling off the wall after completion of the first half of the plaster mold:

Sans clay wall, getting ready to do the second half:

A thin coating of clay slip is painted on the surface where the clay wall used to be. Now ready for the splatter coat on the second half:

Yin and Yang

Posted here are images of a commission I'm working on, shown in progression. I'm thrilled to be working on yet another male figure. I realize that I have always used the female figure as starting point in my work. Is it because I'm a woman and grew up in a house of 6 women? Probably! While Leonardo drew his famous Vitruvian man based on the male figure as the ideal, I've never identified with that. I'm no sexist, but I guess it's just what I know!

Funny story, but my aunt Lillian left in the care of my family a bronze reproduction of the Apollo Belvedere. It stood to the chagrin or entertainment of many visitors in front of our main bathroom toilet. Needless to say I was not entirely without exposure to the beauties of the male physique.