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Welcome to Lifecasting.Com's How to page - Here you'll find Lifecast tips, tricks and processes for creating all sorts of casting projects such as facecasting, child casting, body casting and hand casting! Click on the button to the left to visit the video Archives... |
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John Greves of JohnGrevesArt and LifeCasting.Com is an artist and instructor with over thirty years of experience in lifecasting, Design, Mold Making and Prosthetics - He also is a contributing author to Ehow.Com and YouTube. Greves is an inaugural member of ALI, The Association of Lifecasters International. |
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How to Handcast
As fast as children seem to grow, you can freeze their little hands for all time, and can even hold their favorite object such as a marble or toy! For that perfect couple, read "Wedding Handcast"
Creating the Handcast in the original container
Difficulty: Moderate
Instructions
Things You'll Need:
- 1 to 2 cups of lifecasting alginate.
- Slightly warm water in a clean bowl.
- a paper container tall enough to surround the hand up to the wrist without touching the sidewalls.
- a kitchen whisk or mixer.
- two to three pounds of plaster of paris.
- a utility mixing container for the plaster
- Old clothes, Extra water & paper towels
- Graduated Measuring container(s)
- A camera for sure!!!
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Step 1
Practicing the Pose...
Have child roll up sleeve, grasp toy or marble if desired and lower hand till fingers touch the bottom of the empty casting container and then raise 1/2 inch or so as a practice drill - Decide on the hand pose the child or sitter would like to "Immortalize"
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Step 2
Calculating the materials required...
Put the child's hand in the casting container and add water to desired casting level... This level of water is the amount of total casting fluid that will be needed to produce the cast.
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Step 3
Pour off one third of the water from the casting container and then measure the remaining amount in a graduated mixing bowl - You will need one part alginate to two parts water (For example 1 cup alginate to 2 cups water)
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Step 4
A great parent/child moment to remember!
Pour the two-thirds water into the mixing container and make sure that the child is all set to go! Pour the one third measured alginate powder onto the water and mix immediately by hand or power mixer for a minute or so until blended and bubbly. Child should dip his/her hand into extra water, shake off excess and get set to dip. Pour mix into casting container and assist child in lowering hand into container with slight wriggling motion until first finger touches bottom and then back up 1/2 inch... Remind child to assume planned pose and to avoid touching the sides of the container with fingers - You may have to help hold their hand in place until mix gels, you can tell by touching top of mix with finger until it feels like set Jell-O.
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Step 5
Removing the hand and leaving the toy in the negative cast.
When set, have child start to wriggle fingers and pull hand out - If you used a toy or marble,have subject leave it behind in the alginate so that it will be embedded in the final sculpture. Removing the hand is a bit like pulling your foot from mud... be patient but firm and the air will suck in through the wrist and replace the vacuum without tearing the alginate.
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Step 6
Negative hand ready for plaster...
If all went well, you now have the negative alginate handcast, ready for filling with plaster to immortalize for all time!!! Depending on the amount of water in the alginate, it will start to shrink relatively fast - You must now do one of two things, fill it with plaster or stabilize it by filling it with water and wrapping with damp rags... That will let you transport it back to the studio or postpone the positive casting. -To create the positive handcast, Read "How to plaster cast from an alginate mold"-
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How to plaster cast from an alginate mold
Plaster handcast with marble
To immortalize your negative alginate cast, Follow me here as I demonstrate the plaster casting phase of the project!
Difficulty: Moderate
Instructions
Things You'll Need:
- Bucket of warm water
- Plaster of paris (Or any other casting gypsums, such as statuary hydrocal)
- Gloves (Rubber or plastic)
- Knife for removing outer container
- Wooden or plastic tool for removing alginate from plaster cast
- Cooking or mineral oil
- Paper towels
- Pizza!
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Step 1
The clean dry negative hand awaiting the plaster fill.
First, drain all water from the negative alginate cast, pat dry with a paper towel and inspect interior to see if any loose bits of alginate fell in from the wrist area... Remove if neccesary with wood tool holding upside down and peel away thin edge where wrist & alginate met. Set upright on flat surface and prepare to mix plaster!
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Step 2
Adding the plaster evenly to the water.
Wipe plaster mixing bucket with a paper towel an a few drops of oil (To make cleaning easier) and add 1 to 2 cups of slightly warm water.Begin to add the plaster powder to the water one handful at a time evenly over the entire surface until the plaster begins to rise above the water as "dry islands" Let the water absorb into the swelling plaster for a minute or two in a process that's called "slaking" You can now mix the plater by hand or mechanical mixing - the more energy introduced into mixing the plaster, the stronger the final cast will be... Your final mix should be a lump free, cream-like but pourable consistency. If it's a little thin, add another handful of powder and remix.
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Step 3
Mixing the plaster!
Now comes the pour!!! add about a third of the plaster slurry and then rotate the casting this way and that, just short of pouring the slurry back out... What your doing is encouraging the slurry to seek out the upside down finger pockets of air that may prevent a complete cast- a bubble will suface when you have found one. Complete filling the cast to the top of the container and then lightly jiggle & tap it to rais any air bubbles to the surface. Now it's time to wait for the plaster to set... We usually have pizza with the kids as I show them fossiles and point out that these were the original lifecastings!
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Step 4
Exposing the final sculpture...
Now for the fun stuff! Carefully tear (Or have an adult cut)the container away from the alginate gel... Using your hands and the wood/plastic tool start to remove portions of the gel, gradually exposing the sculpture underneath as in the photo. Continue to remove the gel pieces until the final sculpture remains - This is a really cool period of parent/child discovery interaction,and it requires no batteries!!!
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Step 5
Child Handcast with Purie Cobb Marble
Removing all the bits of alginate is easier when they are still damp. Usually there will be small air pockets and plaster bubbles... Sometimes even a missing or flat part - No worries; I'm going to show you some final sculpture techniques in my "How to dress up your handcast" article.
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| Copyright 2009 www.lifecasting.com - site maintained by move2net |
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