Alginate

Can you stop your mind turning this round? You are actually looking into the back of an alginate mask cast from my face last year but your brain won't let you process that - will it?! Ha ha ha!

Hand Cast in Plaster

It looks almost real. See below for the easy steps a person should take if you want to cast your own body parts for posterity!

Hand Cast

First mix the alginate with an equal volume of water. It sets very quickly so you have to mix it quickly too!








Pour the mix into a suitable container (here a sawn off water bottle) and plunge in the limb that you wish to caste. Pretty soon you are stuck fast.









Now for the life of me can I get this off?






Eventually yes! Fill with plaster and wait a while. It's best to use hard plaster such as "crystocal" but as MWC had run out I had to use a softer fine plaster which makes the mould more brittle. Finally away the alginate and here is the finished cast of my hand in a meditation mudra.

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!