One of the assignments in my Problems in Ceramics class was to create a two-part mold and use it to make a project. I chose to do a body casting.
To do this, vaseline is applied to the body and then 3 layers of medical-grade plaster strips are applied to the front, then the back of the person.
After they have set up, ceramic plaster is mixed and applied (about 1" thick) to the outside of both the front and back molds.
Ceramic Plaster takes about an hour to fully set, but I let mine set for a day or two in the dry booth.
To create the clay impressions, I rolled two flat slabs of clay out (so that they was large enough to cover the entire insides of the molds), and draped them over the insides of the molds. I then compressed them with metal and rubber ribs. I placed both molds in the dry booth for a bit, took them out and covered them with plastic for about a week.
After they had been in the plastic tent, I took the clay molds out and scraped off all the plaster pieces to prevent plaster pop-offs. It was then that I realized the back mold had some problems--the medical-grade plaster had not set up correctly, thus the mold was very weak and unable to hold the weight of both the ceramic plaster and clay. I decided to throw it away and just use the front mold. Thus, I put the front mold in a paper tent for further drying.
Once it was thoroughly dried out, I engraved a body-image saying on the left chest with my metal tool. (Now that I look at the body, I wish I had not done this, as I don't really lke the way the writing looks....)
The body was then high fired.
After the high firing, I used underglazes to create a stain-like effect on the surface. It was then fired to Cone 04.
Here is the result:
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