Casting

Equipment : Clay board, wood, newsprint, chicken wire, clay, drill, screw, plaster, paint

1. Get clayboard and a piece of wood a few inches shorter than you want your sculpture to be and work out the placement best suited to your design. Then with the drill create a dent in the clayboard and screw the wood to the clayboard. Once the armature is assembled pad with paper in broader areas of the design and then keep in place with tightly secured chicken wire.

2. Cover the armature in clay and build up till you have a first layer of coverage and then create your design thickening the clay enough so that you won't get stabbed by any chicken wire.

3. Half the clay sculpture with brass cuttings creating keys.

4. Make a bowl of plaster and add acrylic paint so you can differentiate the final layer. Toss onto the sculpture while still runny making sure it gets into the crevices for complete coverage so details aren't missed.

5.Stick to one side and layer on the normal plaster until evenly covered to the same height as the brass cuttings. Then repeat.

6. Once dry remove the brass cuttings and pull apart the plaster halves.

7. If unwanted, destroy the original clay sculpture.

8. Press clay into the inside of the plaster cast, pressing hard to make sure to pick up all the details. Keep clay quite thick so it doesn't crack when left to dry. Make sure edge of plaster levels out with edge of clay.

9. Glue the edges of the clay and then tie together the two halves with wire. Stick your hand into the cast and smooth out the gaps were the clay meets and make sure it is thick and you can't see any holes.

10. Remove the plaster halves and wipe the clay with a sponge, smoothing out any abnormalities and fixing any holes/gaps.

11. Leave to dry out and then fire in the kiln.

Evolution of Ideas

Before heading to Edinburgh I wanted to try and show how haunted the city was, focussing mostly on Mary King's Close and the city under the city. However, when we did visit, we learned about the plague's effect on the city and I started to look at anything that could be seen as a multiple to keep my mind clear to new ideas. The architecture of the rooftops looked interesting as a background or a silhouette in the fore-front of a picture with the triangular shapes and the sheer amount of chimneys.

 I also liked the idea of multiples lines throughout the city, focussing on the brick work, cobblestones, road lines, map lines, etc. But after a while I couldn't keep focus on that idea because I didn't know how I would have used it as a final piece. After looking at the most historic streets and closes that we could reach through a certain amount of travel and time. We wandered around Greyfriar's graveyard and because of this I tried some image transfers as experiments for my ghosts idea, as a possible idea for the final piece. They worked out well except the printer and paper I used were not too great and the ink ended up smudging when trying to scrub off the back paper. When originally researching for the ghosts and hauntings of Edinburgh I found a few episodes of "Most Haunted" involving the Edinburgh Vaults and Mary King's Close. They sensed many different spirits in the dark underground city areas and they were to be my reference and had maybe thought to recreate some of the "vigils" they had attempted while there. However while on the tour of the close I realised there was no way to create these as it is constant moving, no recording equipment and other tours to interrupt. I did however try to sneak in a sound recorder but was scared of the consequences so never turned it on.

When we returned home I created some small drawings depicting a plague victim, doctor and a rat and gave me the idea of a sculpture involving the three all attached to one another. Ewan commented on this particular drawing about how it was a good concept and how I should focus on something like that. I agreed that since I had more work and research and drawings involving the plague more than hauntings and ghosts that I should probably focus on that and maybe hinting to the hauntings especially around Mary King's since there is already multiple stories of ghosts including one about a young girl who tourists leave toys for. 

You were reminded of the plague through various signs and references posted around the city and it became easier to decide what to focus on the longer we stayed. And so I decided to research farther into the plague focussing particularly on Edinburgh.