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Description
My apologies for the somewhat shoddy quality, I hate using digital cameras for detail shots like this. If there's any blur, I'm sorry, blame the flash of cameras for over-exposing the image and forcing me to hold it still with my shaky hands

Title:
Hand of Abstraction (tentative, i suck at titling my works)

Materials:
Plaster of Paris

Dimensions:
approx 13" wide x 17.25" tall x 6.75" deep, weight unknown but it's pretty cumbersome, I'd estimate about 20-40 pounds, somewhere in there

Info:
This was part of a half a semester (almost) project at Monroe Community College back in Rochester, NY. I don't remember much of the specifics like the plaster recipe used or the time it took, but it took well over two months if I remember correctly. I had everything noted down and the notes got lost in the move to Florida, like half my other stuff.

Anyway, the point of this project was to create a large block of plaster, and then carve it into some sort of pre-defined abstract form. We had to plan out a rough idea of what we wanted to sculpt using a (much smaller) block of clay. Initially, my design was just a regular hand reaching up out of the surface. I don't do well with abstract concepts, I'm too literal but after some advice and some thinking I realized it had too many breakable points, especially the fingers, so I had to remodel it. It ended up becoming a hand with the thumb tucked into the palm, and then for support reasons I added branches at the back blending into the fingers and curving down from the knuckles, which ended up creating an interesting "candle flame" appearance from the side.
When it was translated to a sketch along the surfaces of the block, however, I didn't have nearly enough depth to work it into what I wanted, so I ended up having to cut off the two outer fingers. Worked quite well, I don't usually like most of my works but I'm pretty proud of this one!

The actual sculpting process was very long, since at first the plaster was extremely moist and you could probably have sculpted it with a knifehand chop, it was that soft. Doing so would probably hurt though since it was so dense, but yeah. After drawing the profiles of the sculpture onto the sides and then cutting off large chunks to give a rough but closer shape to cut from, we had to let it dry for a while. If I remember correctly, the periods we had to work with were no more than 80 minutes long, and once a week at that, I can't find my old schedule but it wasn't a lot of time per week.
Once it was slightly firmer we could safely attack the project with chisels and rubber mallets. I was the oddball of the class, I'd stand there and pretty much jackhammer the sculpture into shape with my arm and the chisel, just rapidly chipping and scraping at it but it was fun and I'd do it again if I had the time and materials.
However, even as we worked on this the plaster was still pretty water-laden. Made clean-up really easy, lemme tell you, but we couldn't fully finish our work with it so heavy and soft. It took weeks for it to finally dry up enough for us to use wall-sanding sandpaper to smooth the surfaces and grind down trouble-spots the chisels couldn't quite navigate. As the sculpting ground the form down we encountered a lot of little pockets of unmixed plaster or some air-bubbles, as you can probably see in this.

I was rather fortunate that I didn't have any mishaps with this project other than the depth issue, however some of my classmates slipped up or they carved theirs too thin and their projects ended up breaking, or unexpected air-bubble revelations would cause things to crumble. But, the wonder of art is that any mistake can be made into a "happy mistake", those whose projects were mangled were able to recycle the fractures or transform the slips into even better design elements.
All in all it was a great project and I wish I had the time and materials to do more plaster sculpting.

After this was done I sealed it with some spray-on sealant, though that didn't protect it from a few bang-ups during the move. It did keep it from being easily scoured into dust though, just rubbing hardened plaster with your fingers will rub off a lot of dust. Plaster is fun to work with until it gets dry enough to sand, the dust is a health hazard because it's so fine.

My mom loves this piece and had it in her bedroom in Rochester ever since I brought it home, she says it reminds her of a family. If you look at it just right you can kinda see two parents holding a little baby. I had no idea until she pointed that out, but it makes the design even better in my opinion.

I'll open up critiques, though I prefer to have critiques done on things I can change, like my drawings. However, I do want to hear what you think of this from a critical perspective.

This design is intellectual copyright to me; this image may not be used elsewhere nor the design of the sculpture copied/modified in personal projects without my explicit permission.

Description
My apologies for the somewhat shoddy quality, I hate using digital cameras for detail shots like this. If there's any blur, I'm sorry, blame the flash of cameras for over-exposing the image and forcing me to hold it still with my shaky hands

Title:
Hand of Abstraction (tentative, i suck at titling my works)

Materials:
Plaster of Paris

Dimensions:
approx 13" wide x 17.25" tall x 6.75" deep, weight unknown but it's pretty cumbersome, I'd estimate about 20-40 pounds, somewhere in there

Info:
This was part of a half a semester (almost) project at Monroe Community College back in Rochester, NY. I don't remember much of the specifics like the plaster recipe used or the time it took, but it took well over two months if I remember correctly. I had everything noted down and the notes got lost in the move to Florida, like half my other stuff.

Anyway, the point of this project was to create a large block of plaster, and then carve it into some sort of pre-defined abstract form. We had to plan out a rough idea of what we wanted to sculpt using a (much smaller) block of clay. Initially, my design was just a regular hand reaching up out of the surface. I don't do well with abstract concepts, I'm too literal but after some advice and some thinking I realized it had too many breakable points, especially the fingers, so I had to remodel it. It ended up becoming a hand with the thumb tucked into the palm, and then for support reasons I added branches at the back blending into the fingers and curving down from the knuckles, which ended up creating an interesting "candle flame" appearance from the side.
When it was translated to a sketch along the surfaces of the block, however, I didn't have nearly enough depth to work it into what I wanted, so I ended up having to cut off the two outer fingers. Worked quite well, I don't usually like most of my works but I'm pretty proud of this one!

The actual sculpting process was very long, since at first the plaster was extremely moist and you could probably have sculpted it with a knifehand chop, it was that soft. Doing so would probably hurt though since it was so dense, but yeah. After drawing the profiles of the sculpture onto the sides and then cutting off large chunks to give a rough but closer shape to cut from, we had to let it dry for a while. If I remember correctly, the periods we had to work with were no more than 80 minutes long, and once a week at that, I can't find my old schedule but it wasn't a lot of time per week.
Once it was slightly firmer we could safely attack the project with chisels and rubber mallets. I was the oddball of the class, I'd stand there and pretty much jackhammer the sculpture into shape with my arm and the chisel, just rapidly chipping and scraping at it but it was fun and I'd do it again if I had the time and materials.
However, even as we worked on this the plaster was still pretty water-laden. Made clean-up really easy, lemme tell you, but we couldn't fully finish our work with it so heavy and soft. It took weeks for it to finally dry up enough for us to use wall-sanding sandpaper to smooth the surfaces and grind down trouble-spots the chisels couldn't quite navigate. As the sculpting ground the form down we encountered a lot of little pockets of unmixed plaster or some air-bubbles, as you can probably see in this.

I was rather fortunate that I didn't have any mishaps with this project other than the depth issue, however some of my classmates slipped up or they carved theirs too thin and their projects ended up breaking, or unexpected air-bubble revelations would cause things to crumble. But, the wonder of art is that any mistake can be made into a "happy mistake", those whose projects were mangled were able to recycle the fractures or transform the slips into even better design elements.
All in all it was a great project and I wish I had the time and materials to do more plaster sculpting.

After this was done I sealed it with some spray-on sealant, though that didn't protect it from a few bang-ups during the move. It did keep it from being easily scoured into dust though, just rubbing hardened plaster with your fingers will rub off a lot of dust. Plaster is fun to work with until it gets dry enough to sand, the dust is a health hazard because it's so fine.

My mom loves this piece and had it in her bedroom in Rochester ever since I brought it home, she says it reminds her of a family. If you look at it just right you can kinda see two parents holding a little baby. I had no idea until she pointed that out, but it makes the design even better in my opinion.

I'll open up critiques, though I prefer to have critiques done on things I can change, like my drawings. However, I do want to hear what you think of this from a critical perspective.

This design is intellectual copyright to me; this image may not be used elsewhere nor the design of the sculpture copied/modified in personal projects without my explicit permission.