3-D Art & Mushrooms

Once again, as with my rabbit, this mushroom started out to be something else. We were supposed to find an interesting container and make a plaster casting. It was, I believe, my instructor's desire that it would turn out to look like an ancient ruin or something. As always, I walked my own path on this one. While everyone was bringing plastic forms removed from products like hair driers, chocolates, even card board boxes and such, I decided I was going to bring in a huge oval plastic jug that used to hold pretzels.

As the other students were filling their various containers with sand, I was cutting the bottom out of my plastic jug. As they were making designs in the sand for their project, I was finally filling my upside down jug with sand. I thought I would make a cone shape down the middle of the sand, put plaster in and have a basic shape that I would carve designs in, paint it and it would be stunning replica of a ancient building. Hmmm, back to reality....O.K., did I mention I used a wine bottle to make the cone type shape in the sand? I managed to break that wine bottle while we were cleaning up.

I was told vermiculite added to the plaster would make it lighter, so I added some some all right! I thought I'd shake some in and of course I poured too much and my plaster started drying before I could even pour it in the sand mold! So...I started over, new plaster, NO vermiculite! I poured it in the mold I made and let it set for about 4 hours. I then cut the plastic jar away from the largest part of the plaster and pulled the mold out.

Well you should have seen the look on my face when I saw it....The term "FALLAC SYMBOL" acurately describes what I saw in front of me!!!! I later found out most of my classmates had the same reaction. I started trying to chisel it into something, anything else...unfortunately, my sculpting skills and the tools I had at my disposal were sadly lacking. :(((

Bless my fellow art students, they started trying to give me ideas. Lay it on it side, put eyes on it and make an elephant, turn it upside down and paint it like an ice cream cone, and so on. Us girls had a good laugh about what it looked like when we were away from the guys ( actually, we were giggling like a bunch of young girls).

I gave it a couple of days and thought about it and wham, out of nowhere I saw it perfectly, A MUSHROOM! All I had to do was figure out how to make the mold for the top. I bought two bowls, one large and one medium/small. I used the large bowl to make a depression in the sand then filled it with some plaster. Next, I put vaseline on the out side of the smaller bowl and pressed it into the fresh plaste to form the curved underside of my top. I let it set up, removed the smaller bowl and....WALAH!!.... it wasn't an ancient ruin but I had a mushroom I could live with, literally. In fact I will be making two more in varying sizes, sealing them and placing all three in my new front porch garden area!