Final pictures (well, kinda)

Marble

I mixed marble powder with resin (again, not gel coat) as my texts have given a nice range of marble outcomes. I gives its own 'imperfections', whereas mixing in pigments just makes it look a bit false. I've done the same for the base. They've both come out alright, but the head is a bit bubbly. After working some ink into them, it gave quite a nice chaotic look, but I think I might have to do another for the show. I'll give it some time.

Flavoured base

I played around with applying bits of resin in irratic, random flicks, and mixed up resin with bronze powder, marble powder and blue and red pigment. It feels a bit like alchemy.. which is fun. A technique worth remembering if I need to make a massive belgian chocolate chunk.......

Mark Prent Technique

Opened up the cast I made using the layered Mark Prentish technique, but it hasn't worked. There is no good translucency. Next time use less slate powder filler.

Colouration & Rusting

I've got a book out the library called 'The colouring, bronzing and patination of metals' by Hughes and Rowe. Much of the content isn't relevent to me now, but one idea stands out as perhaps worth trying. They call it Particle/Sawdust Technique. Basically it means using sawdust or wood shavings or something similar to keep the surface of the metal moist and allow oxyidisation. You can also pigment the surface with this technique. Maybe I could get sawdust from the technicians and immerse a cast using this..

Iron

Today I mixed iron powder with resin, not gel coat, so I could use more iron powder to get a similar consistency for working with, but more surface iron. It came out pretty well, so i'll put it in salty water tomorrow to corrode it. Here it is after a bit of wire-wooling:

Mark Prent

This artist seems to be of acclaim in the dark surrealist art underworld. Here's a quote from his website http://www.markprent.com/ :

"Mark Prent is still making sculptures, but his materials-of-choice have changed from polyester resin and fiberglass to pigmented silicone "skins" over gypsum-polymer "skeletons." The technique involved is similar to the signature method that he developed in the early 1970's with polyester resin, that of builiding-up multiple reverse layers of translucent pigmented material to achieve a believable vitality in the cast positive."

Link on the right to see some of his work.

The idea of building up layers of translucency may be a nice idea with different ratios of resin and slate powder....