 and Visio and welcome to my art class. Today we're going to be learning about botanical plaster casting and just to break that down a little bit, botanical means just dealing with plants and plaster is an art material we're going to use today and casting is when you use a mold with the plaster to make a copy of something and you'll understand all that once we get going. So what is plaster? Plaster is actually also known as gypsum and it's a mineral that comes from the earth called calcium sulfate hemichydrate and it's taken from the earth and using a process dehydrated to form plaster and if you've ever had a broken bone you might have gotten a plaster cast or if you have an old house maybe your walls are made of lath and plaster that's the same material. It's also sometimes called plaster of Paris and that's just because there's a lot of gypsum found around Paris that was mined and now another way plaster can be used is as a surface to paint on. So when an artist paints on wet plaster that's called a fresco. If you want to try saying it with me at home, fresco and a true fresco also known as a bone of fresco is when it layers of plaster are applied to a wall and then the last layer while it's still wet the artist actually paints on it. They take their pigments which are usually in powder form, mix them with water and paint on the wet plaster. Because the pigments were applied to wet plaster those pigments actually became part of the wall and it was a very durable way of painting on a wall so very old frescoes are actually still intact and you can still see them. The only downfall was that plaster cures very quickly so an artist would just have to work a very small section of the time. Now two of the most famous frescoes that you may have heard about you may have seen them are in Italy and they are Michelangelo's in the Sistine Chapel. Now if you look at these there's paintings all over that room even on the ceiling so there was a lot of scaffolding that had to be set up and there's also Raphael's stanza murals in the Vatican. Another example of a very famous fresco in Italy. Now those are just two really popular ones but there's many others all around that you can see or learn about. So working with plaster and plaster casting actually happens to be one of my favorite art forms. You don't really know what you're going to get until you finally pull off that mold and see what you have so it's a lot of hoping that you did it all right a lot of measurements it's a little bit scientific a little bit magical a little bit mysterious which is why I really like it. So I'm really happy to share this with you today so let's begin. All right let's take a look at the supplies that I put together for you that you picked up at the library. We each got a paper cup with a line drawn on it a small scrap of sandpaper a wooden stir stick that's also going to be used as a scoop. The paper bag your items came in you can cut this down the side and cut off the bottom if you want to lay it flat and use it as a work surface. You've got a hunk of earth clay and it's wrapped in saran wrap just leave it in that saran wrap until we're ready to use it because it dries out very quickly and we're going to want this nice and soft for when we use it and you can actually find earth clay locally if on riverbed sometimes there's like just these masses of earth clay you can dig it up and there's ways of cleaning it to use. You also got a bag of plaster we're going to go over a little bit more a little art history lesson about plaster in just a few moments but just a fair warning plaster cannot go down the drain at all. When plaster is mixed with water it turns rock solid and it'll clog your pipes and you also got this plastic mold form and just to save on waste I try to you know reduce my plastic use. I use these reusable forms in your kits. I've used these before for this class when I've taught it and I just put it in your kit. If when we're done and you say I want to make more of those if you'd like to keep this so you can make more that's fine you may keep it. If you'd like to return it there'll be a drop box at the library at the same spot that you picked up your kit. You can just return it there and I'll reuse it for future classes so either is fine with me. Here are some of the things that you'll need from home. You'll need your paper cup filled with cold tap water right up to that line that I drew. You're going to need your work surface this is that bag that your supplies came in and I just cut it open. If you can do this project outside since the weather is getting nicer that's the best place to do it. Plaster and clay tend to get a little bit messy so if you're outside with your table covered with an old piece of cardboard or the bag that will work best. This is optional but it would be helpful to have a little container full of just water. This is for rinsing our tools or washing our finished piece. Remember none of that plaster can go down the drain so this really helps when we want to clean what we're using and then something to roll with. I have a rolling pin that I use for arts and crafts but if you don't have this at home you can also use an empty bottle or a like a spray paint can. It's just to give our clay a little bit of a roll to make it smooth before we start using it. And then the last supply you'll need from home is just some plants that we're going to use. I just want to show you some examples of plants that are good to use and some things that aren't. When I'm taping this video the dandelions haven't popped out yet so hopefully for you by time you're doing this project and for my honey bees the dandelions will be out maybe some daffodils. Those would both work great in this project. Since I didn't have flowers outside I just picked an orchid from a plant inside my house and I didn't mind taking one of the flowers. You want to choose plants that are flat but still have a lot of texture so if you'll see these evergreens is from Cedar Tree. They've got a lot of texture but they lay really flat that's going to work for our project. This is a Magnolia. Oh that's another flower that might be out and that works really good. I've done the Magnolia for this project but right now I just have buds so I snipped off a little branch. They've got those cool fuzzy buds up there. This is an Oakley from last year was just kind of hanging around and this is garlic grass. It comes out really early in the spring. Something that wouldn't work these little milkweed pods. They're very cool but they just they're too thick for our projects. See how thick that is so something like that wouldn't work. Just make sure before you cut anything that it's okay with your parents and that you only take what you need. Okay my art students it's time to cast our plaster but first we need to make our mold and I've got all the supplies I'll need. They're all laid out in front of me. I've got something to protect my table and I just want to talk to you a little bit about plaster before we begin. If you've never worked with it it can seem a little daunting. There's going to be a lot of steps here so just watch it through and if you want to play the video again while you're working and just pause it as needed you can do that too. Just work carefully, work slowly, work thoughtfully. If something you know really bad happens and it just doesn't turn out that's okay. You can always email me and I'll just get you more supplies but if you follow you know the directions here I think you should be just fine. Using plaster is a little bit more like baking. There's you know certain measurements and times that you have to wait. I have full confidence that you can do it. Okay so I'm going to first get my plants out and for your piece I'd suggest using two to three objects, two to three plants. If you have too many it's going to be too crowded and you're not going to see each individual plant. Two to three you can even do one if you want it to be really simple. I'm going to use three today and they're all kind of varying texture. This grass is you know kind of long and smooth. The stick has just a neat shape to it that's going to give a really good impression in our plaster in our mold because it's got you know some height to it and then this really delicate flower. Okay as I'm looking at this bag I see that crease right there that will show up in my mold so I'm going to move over to this spot of the bag that has no creases in it and I'm going to just set up my plants. You want to put textured side up okay so I'm going to put the flower there. Sometimes with flowers they might be sticking up a little bit just break it. You can break it with your fingers so it lays flat and I have my garlic grass that I found in my backyard. It's got some cool curlies and then I'm going to put my branch right across there. Okay it's not too cluttered it's not too layered. Okay so I've composed it. You want to give yourself a little space. Do not try to fit your image into this box okay work a little bigger. See how I'm working a little bigger. We will compose and crop our piece in just a moment. After I'm happy with that I'm going to take my slab of earth clay and I'm just going to carefully unwrap it. Yours was wrapped up in cardboard just to keep it nice and steady so that it didn't bend in your bag. So I've unwrapped it and there's two sides to your clay. See this side it's kind of bumpy on mine. This side is a lot smoother. If yours has dings and fingerprints in it you might just want to take this moment to get your rolling pin and just very gently roll back and forth. You don't want to thin out your clay too much okay. Just give a nice roll back and forth. If yours is smooth if there's no fingerprints in there if there's no dense then you are ready to go. So I chose this side as the smoother side so that means this nice smooth side is going to touch my flowers. So with two hands however it works you're going to very carefully flip over your slab of clay right onto your flowers. With my fingers now I'm going to gently press without moving that clay. Once it's down you can't peel it back up and do it again because you'll have a just kind of a blurry mishmash of your plants. So pat it down and then use your fingertips to firmly go over the entire surface of the clay. If you are digging down and making deep holes in your clay that might be too hard. Once it's fully pressed and you know you've got every spot you're going to carefully take that clay up and flip it over and then you're just going to remove the plants from your clay. You'll notice some will come out easier than others. Sometimes a pair of tweezers helps just to grab them. You want to make sure that you're being very careful with your your mold now. If you put fingerprints in here they're going to show up in your final piece. So if you're using tweezers to get something out just very carefully. Okay I've removed as much as I could of all the plant bits that are in there as best as I could. Now we're going to take our plastic square and there's a line that says fill in there. Just make sure you can read that the correct way. Now what we're going to do is hold the corner. That'll just help you find the square better. I like to hold it with my two fingers like that. And what we're going to do is compose by hovering above our square right here to find the best looking spot. Composing just means using your artistic eye to choose what you're going to see at the end. Okay when you compose before you push this down into the clay you want to make sure you have about a fingers width of clay on all sides. If you're over too much and you push down there's going to be a big hole there. So I look I haven't pushed in yet I'm hovering I'm composing and I think I'm going to choose right there still holding the corner and just firmly press that plastic wall down into your clay. And then you're going to go around your mold and with your fingers. This is going to help with leaks. Just press up the clay on all four sides. I like to hold down the plastic wall as I push up the sides. Once your sides are all pressed up just take a little pinch of clay and we want to seal up this crack right here. You can just from the outside just press a little clay onto it. You've made a mold and now we're ready to mix our plaster. Okay so working in another area you don't really want to move your mold too much. Your clay is a little bit softer than mine so it's not going to move as easily. So just find another spot to work. You're going to fill your cup up to that line with cold water and we use cold water with plaster because it sets up slower and it's going to give you a little bit more working time. I've got my scooping stick, my stirring stick and I've got my plaster. So I'm going to teach you the way that I learned in college how to mix plaster. Sometimes you'll see a recipe for proportions but this is the way I learned and it's the way I've always used it and it's never failed me. You're going to take scoops of the plaster using your spoon and you want to evenly distribute the plaster sprinkling it in over the entire surface of the water. Okay so it means you don't want to just dump in the middle. Try to get it on the sides. I am not going to stir this and I'm not going to put my stick into that water until we're all done. So I'm just going to keep on scooping until the plaster is going to start rising up to the surface of the water and we're going to see islands on the top of the surface of our water and I'll show you that in just a minute. So I kept on scooping and if you see what I mean that's what I mean a little island. I can see the plaster is all up to the surface of the water and there's just a little bit of an island right there. That is good. Now we know we have enough plaster in here. You might have a little bit of extra plaster in your bag. That's okay you can just put that aside. So taking your stir stick you are going to go ahead and stir your plaster nice and gently so we don't add too many air bubbles. Scrape the sides and scrape the bottom. Okay my plaster is all mixed. There's no more lumps. I'm just going to wipe off the excess. Put that stick aside and now it's time to pour our plaster into our mold. Okay I've got my mold and there's my fill line. I'm just going to take my plaster and gently pour it right into my mold up to the fill line. You may have a little bit of extra plaster in your cup and that's okay. If you don't fully reach the fill line that's okay too as long as you're close. Okay I just poured my plaster in and the first thing I want to do is check for leaks and I don't see any around. That means I did a good job sealing up my mold. If you have plaster that's starting to leak out you need to use some of your clay to patch that. I don't have any leaks and I'm good so now what I'm going to do for about 30 seconds is just pound the table and what that's going to do is release the air bubbles that are stuck under there. Just bang the table like that. Okay the bubbles are all released they all move to the top. I'm going to let this sit for now three to four hours. Just leave it right alone. You don't have to move it. It's going to do its thing. There's going to be a chemical reaction. It's going to get hot and then it's going to cool down. With your stir stick that can just either go in your compost or it can go in the garbage with the plaster on. Remember we don't put plaster down the drain. If you had any leftover plaster in your cup just leave it and we'll let that dry and I'll show you what you can do with that. If you have plaster on your hands just take that little bin you are using as a wash bin and wash your hands and we'll just let that sit and we'll come back in about three to four hours. Okay so it's been about three hours. My plaster is cool to the touch and I know it's ready to demold. So what we're going to do very carefully our plaster at this point is very green still. So we have to care carefully move with it. You're just going to pull off your clay mold. This is so exciting. You guys ready for this? What's it going to look like? Here we go. Here's my clay. If I flip it over. Wow. So cool. And then very gently I can take my plastic wall and open it up a little bit and the plaster should fall right out. There we go. See all the detail. You can even see the petals of the orchid. So the next step we're going to take that little bin of water. I like to take my finger and run it around the outside edge. It's a little sharp and that should kind of flick right off. If you have any kind of paintbrush a very gentle paintbrush. You don't want to go in with anything too harsh right now. Your plaster is still very soft. So I just have this really soft paintbrush. I'm just going to go around and kind of get that clay debris off the surface of my plaster. Rinse it. So just finishing up cleaning the surface. Once I'm happy with that I can take my sandpaper in the water and just go around the corner if you'd like and soften that edge. If you have the sandpaper and your piece wet while you're sanding that helps it flow smoothly. And I'll just keep sanding until I'm happy with that edge. So there we go. Can shake off the water. Pat it dry if you'd like. There's our finished piece of plaster. So here's one more thing for you. Remember that if you had a little bit of plaster left in your cup. Well, if you just pop that right out then you've got this cool little disc of plaster. You can go ahead and paint a little pitcher on there or draw something and then you've got yourself a cool little tiny canvas to do some more art on. And that's not all. You have your clay. Now mine's really hard because my clay was a little harder. Yours is going to be really soft like this. So now you have a hunk of clay that you can make some things out of. You have a whole new project here. Maybe you'd like to make a pinch pot or what about if you made some beads? You just buy rolling clay into a ball and then you could just take a skewer and poke a hole in it. Then you've got some beads. Maybe you'd like to make some little faces or my daughter Alice made these. She made these little red pandas. She made this little set, a Helderberg workshop and then she let it dry in the sun for a couple days. And when it was hard, she painted it so you can make some little critters. Okay, artist, it is the end of the video. But before we go, I just wanted to say a couple more things. Make sure you clean up your spot. Any extra plaster can just be scooped up and thrown in the garbage. Your water bucket that you've been using to wash your hands or your tools in that can just be dumped outside. Maybe in the woods or something. It's not going to harm anything. Remember, no plaster down the sink. These are just some examples of different ones I did. This is that sprig of cedar I showed you at the beginning. There's a lot of texture in that. If you would like to add a hole to your piece so that way you could hang it on the wall on a nail or with a string. All I did was I took a drill bit and I by hand, I just carefully went through my piece and it's not too hard to cut through. Just make sure you've worked down from the edge so it doesn't crack. Here's some other pieces that I've made in the past. These weren't from when my kids were really little. I didn't put their hands in plaster, right? I did the same technique of plaster casting. First, I made a mold with Play-Doh and I pushed their hands into the Play-Doh and then I poured plaster into that mold and you can see how detailed the plaster really gets. It gets every little wrinkle and fingernail. There's something cool to show you. Those are pretty neat and just remember if you'd like to return your plastic wall to the library, there'll be a bend to do that. If you would like to continue on, if you really enjoyed this and you want to keep it or if you need to try again, just keep it. That's okay. So now it's time for you to try your hand at plaster casting. Just remember, follow the steps and you should be okay. Hopefully, it gives you a little bit of appreciation for working with plaster like the artists Michelangelo and Raphael and if you'd like to share your creations with me, I would love to see them. I'll leave my email at the end of this video or you could send them to Mrs. Brown. Okay, I hope you enjoy your vacation and I hope all goes well with plaster casting. Bye.