Marysia's Face Cast

Face Casts

I touched up a couple of holes in the original cast: it's important to wet the mould first so that it doesn't suck all the moisture from any new plaster applied and cause the new to fail to bind with the old plaster. I think it looks pretty good now.

Then although the algernate was breaking up a bit (note the fissure lines and the squashed nose) I managed to put it back together and make a second cast. Interesting effects.

A third cast was made a week later from the remaining algernate bits that could still be used - see these "pieces of me". Remember to paste wet plaster onto the algernate first and then add scrim to strengthen, pasting that in with more wet plaster. The algernate was much harder after a week and more difficult to take off the plaster cast - see the bits of blue still stuck on these pieces.

The plaster masks created to hold the algernate on the face as it dried are actually quite interesting in themselves. They remind me of tribal masks from New Guinea. Perhaps I will decorate them as such.

Face Casting with Abigail

Later, I helped cette avant garde artiste - Abigail - to cast her own face! The process works as follows: cover the hair, apply vaseline to eyebrows, eyelids etc. (or they'll be extracted!), stuff some straws up your nose so that you can continue to breathe, then lie back while a friendly assistant mixes the bright blue algernate and then pours it over your head. Plaster bandage is then wrapped around the disappeared Abigail to support the algernate and make a stronger mould. The algernate sets in 3 minutes and after 15 mins we carefully peel it off to reveal the cleansed face of the victim.
In this particular case the MW bandages were old and didn't harden properly so we had to balance the mould in two bowls to keep the shape. Plaster was then carefully pressed into the mould with fine scrim (mesh) bandage to add strength. Ultimately a plaster face will be created from the mould.

I am having a go at this in a laboratory near you soon!