Experimenting with gesso - One part mold

 Some time ago I got some (second hand) gesso powder and a few days ago I decided to do a little experiment.
My Idea was to make a one part mold, so I first sculpted a rabbit medallion.



The next part was making a small box to pour the gesso into. I used lego, keeping in mind that it can be demolished. However it didn't turned to be water proof, meaning it wouldn't be gesso proof so I filled the small gaps with super glue. So, the whole idea of using lego was a bit useless. (it was fake lego btw, that's maybe why it wasn't water proof).

After I varnished my little rabbit sculpt I covered it in a fatty wax (I don't know the correct english word...) so it could be easily removed from the gesso.

I mixed two parts gesso powder with one part water and poured it into the lego box. I had no idea how long it would take for the gesso to be hard. This was because the gesso was second hand and the instruction weren't included. It only said on the packaging that you needed one part water and two parts powder (it told me even more about what not to do with the gesso ). First I thought it didn't work at all and I let it rest for a few minutes. When I took a second look it was quite hard already, luckily it turned a bit softer when I exerted some pressure and I was able to push the rabbit medallion into the gesso before it was too late.



Because I had now idea how long it would take before all the water was evaporated out of the gesso, I let it dry the whole night on the radiator. This morning it was quite hard already and after slamming it hard (but not too hard ) on a hard surface the rabbit came out unharmed.



Now I have a lovely 'anti-rabbit'. I'll let it dry for now and I think I'll varnish the mold too before I try to duplicate my rabbit medallion. I first have to find something to pour into the mold. I was thinking about using the rubber in a glue gun, as it is not really some sort of glue that's in such a gun but just melted rubber. I also want to see what happens if you mix one part glue (real glue this time) and two parts gesso, just out of curiosity   .



If anyone has tips or ideas, please tell me  

Aww cute little bunny    

jonesee wrote:

Aww cute little bunny    

Thank you   

Very cute! Congrats, I tried doing this with something I made and the results were not good Looks like you were successful! Maybe you can try pouring liquid resin in the mold?

This is so exiting   

I can't wait to see what happens next     

Thank you 4U and Susanne
@4U: It can still go wrong . Liquid resin might work, but I don't think any shop nearby sells it, this  means I'd have to buy it online. As I'm working with simple materials and I don't really want to spent to much money (yet), I think I'll just try alternatives    .

I also want to see if it works! How interesting :)

Cute

Thank you Andreas and Sylobe

I've just tried the glue and gesso mix. Just the mix, I haven't poured it into my little mold, I first want to know what glue and gesso together does, maybe they explode and my whole mold will be destroyed   


First I measured the two parts gesso, though I leave it in the small bucket. I will first pour the glue into the bucket where I will be mixing the two ingredients. When I put the gesso in the bucket first, I wont be able to see whenever I add enough glue. I can't measure the glue in another bucket, becuase I won's be able to get it all out of that bucket. I could've used a balance/scale though...


Let's continue. Here I've added the gesso to the glue.
Here's a little close up:

At first I thought it didn't work, It looked like the gesso didn't want to attach to the glue, but after mixing a while...


... it turned into a nice paste. While mixing, you could see the strokes I made with the skewer. But the funny thing was that it turned more solid af a few minutes (or more like after half a minute)


Here's another close up picture. It looks quite nice; smooth and soft:


As I said above, I don't want to pour it into the rabbit mold yet, so I made a small bucket of aluminium foil.

I scoped the mixture out of the bucket and it easily 'dripped' into the little bucket.

And it's full :) It had a smooth surface... before my curious fingers made ripples in it  
 

It's now drying on our radiator   

I'm curious to see what happens, will it be hard, soft/rubbery or friable. Or maybe it doesn't it work at all...
Has anyone predictions?  

A science experiment!

Animal_Figures_4U wrote:

A science experiment!

I do like science   

the mixture of gesso and glue was quite strong and not fragile at all. The problem is that it needs to be exposed to air in order to dry and harden completely. Because only the surface was exposed to air, the other parts were still a kind of soft and sticky. I made a new mixture and put some of it on the edge of my gesso mold. I did the same with a glue gun, but both didn't work. They adhered to the gesso and I couldn't get it off without damaging the mold (the actual mold wasn't damaged, only the edge of it, which I don't need for casting).
So in the end I just poured the normal water and gesso mix into the mold. After letting it harden for about 24 hours I managed to get it out safely. Now I have two rabbits :cheers:The gesso one is still fragile, I will give it some more days to become more firm and then I'll give it a varnish treatment.  

I can't wait to see the completed rabbits! Glad you could find out a solution.

This is so much fun to follow   

Your experiments are very interesting ! I LOVE it !   
That must be the spirit that made humans go from cave people to computer people  

     
what will happen next !!! im curious
      

Thank you 4U, Susanne and NandO

I'll take some photos when I've made some more copies. The second one is currently drying.
The shape of the rabbit can be used for all dwarf rabbit breeds and I plan to paint the copies like all those breeds