Re-balancing

Really starting to sort my days out now with the new job hours and feel like I'm getting much more done on a daily basis. I've almost finished a new sculpture, using a slightly different technique as a bit of an experiment. I wanted to try making a mold without messing with plaster or silicone stuff and also to see how a piece would work with less clay and a majority of paper pulp. I made a rough mold of the red one arm handstand using paper mache over the cling filmed figure. Once it dried I then used Paverpol, a transparent textile hardener to make the mold a bit more robust, then carefully cut through the paper to provide 2 halves.

I tipped the shape around to produce another one arm balance so the arms are switched around but the shape looks pretty nice. I used air dry clay to form the outer skin in the mould then rammed paper mache and then paper pulp around an armature which I wrangled into shape using the mold as a guide. It worked ok though the mold edges opened out a bit so I had to keep squidging it in to get the shape right. As I did corrections I soon discovered the paper pulp dries very hard and doesn't need the clay or the paper mache! The mold was ditched once the angles and proportion were satisfactory and I did the rest by eye, comparing shape and size of limbs and torso with the original piece.

Here's how I make the pulp: tear up egg cartons into small pieces, peeling out layers when I can get to them. I then pour boiling water over it and leave overnight ready to pulp using a cheap hand blender. I then sieve and squeeze out the water and wrap each blob in cling film until ready to use. When I'm ready to go, I tease out a compacted blob of pulp into little bits and drizzle PVA glue over it and mix it in. This makes a sticky and mushy pulp which can be applied and sculpted like clay. Well, almost like clay but it's malleable enough to do as much detail as you like. And like I said, it dries super hard and needs a sharp craft knife or a good rasp to shave off any extraneous lumps and bumps.

Now an undercoat of paint is drying and I can see where some fine tuning is needed but in the meantime I'm trying another mold. This next one should come together much quicker now I've got a feel on how to handle the pulp. I'll post some pictures as I go with that one then you can see how a piece evolves from start to finish.