A simple arrangement of hemispherical castings on a white background produces a rich variety of grey tones.
Later when the sun has moved around the shadows are much softer
Tag: geometry
Creating Shadows
Light falling across a corrugated surface always intrigues me – inspired by my father Richard Wakelin’s sculptures from 20 years ago, I made this smaller copy of his Stepped Cube.
A few years ago, I made this pleated paper installation in the deconsecrated chapel, whilst attending a Drawing course at Yorkshire Sculpture Park with David Nash, amongst others. A length of drawing paper 5m x 1.5m repeatedly folded and set in front of one of the long windows, behaved like a bucket of light and has inspired me to make more pleated paper sculptures since.
Progress in casting
I have at last succeeded in making the piece I had planned, though this is very much a test piece, I think I have made all the required mistakes now, so when I make another, it will be of good quality.
Speeding up the drying process by putting the cast in the oven at less than 50°C leaving the door ajar so that moisture can escape, can prevent rust stains forming (seen here in the third image).
My first customer
Experiments in casting
Hopefully I have learned enough from the last two experiments to make a good casting this time.
I set up the wok again with Plasticine walls and a slightly larger saucepan lid and made up a much larger batch of plaster hoping to cast the whole thing in one go.
I poured the plaster into the wok and started swirling it genlty, hoping to make it stick to each part of the surface – impeded somewhat by the thick layer of petroleum jelly. During the next 10 minutes the plaster gradually thickened and began to build a smooth layer over the whole surface area. As I swirled the liquid it behaved like a tidal wave coming around and around in a regular sweep but as it began to set it grew thicker and was in danger of leaving a literal tide mark in an unsuitable way. I set the wok down to rest and watched as the excess plaster solidified in an almost even spare-tyre kind of shape in the centre.
I decided this time not to try to manipulate the surface in any way and I am pleased to say that it is smooth and even, though somewhat thicker towards the centre with a discernable swelling about 2 cms from the pan lid, it looks pink here but it dries white.
I suspect that the outer/upper edges are fairly thin and that I will need to make another pouring.
Experiments in casting
I wanted to make a “stone” version of a form I have made often as jewellery, the Reuleaux Triangle – the original form developed by the mechanical engineer Franz Reuleaux in the late 19th century.
- I needed to mark out my new wok – I couldn’t find a set of dividers large enough – 25cms, so I made a very simple one from strips of wood. I borrowed a wing nut, bolt and nut from something else, cut two pices of 30cms and one 18cm long, drilled some holes at roughly .5cm intervals on the short piece and used two nails to fit them together, added some points just with sellotape.
- I marked the wok roughly in blue felt-tip pen and then found the centre-point using the dividers, drew a circle, divided that into six. I drilled a small indent at three of those points and used those as the centres to draw the three arcs.
- I made Plasticene walls along the scored lines and set a saucepan lid at the centre to form the central hole. I hoped that brushing the whole thing with petroleum jelly would make it easy to remove when set.
- Using Cassini’s plaster from Maragon, I mixed up a test bacth that was enough to coat only about half of the mould, I added progressively both by making more mixture but also by scraping the surfcae and using that to infill gaps. Not a good idea as it turned out.
- The plaster becomes very hard and waterproof after maximum of 5 days but is workable to varying degrees for 2-3 days, at 15 minutes it seemed a bit like cheese, almost rubbery and not easily spread out or carved, though i did try to scrape the surface smnooth with a swan-necked cabinet scraper and what is charmingly called an Alabaster Knife from Tiranti, sculpture suppliers in London
- 24 hours later it was dry enough to slip clear of the wok, petroleum jelly works but the uneven inside surface was terribly difficult to work on, dimpled, rough and flawed and the outer surface was marked with poorly patched areas, badly mixed plaster (small inclusions of plaster dust), rust and ink stains as well as bubbles!
- So – it had to go in the bin . . .
Sally Wakelin - Studies in Creativity 
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