Moulds are, in my view, one of the best inventions in the history of sculpture. Every sculptor finds they need several copies of the same thing at one time or another. If, like me, you are lazy and have a short attention span, the prospect of having to make a whole bunch of identical things does not appeal. Today’s post will take a look at a couple of things I’ve done with moulds recently.
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| ...such as these test tube stoppers with Mayan hieroglyphs on them |
In honour of the fact that it’s 2012, I decided I wanted to make a signature in Mayan hieroglyphs to put on things (for a crash course in Mayan hieroglyphic awesomeness, see here). Well, you’ve seen how intricate those glyphs are and it was going to be a cold day in hell before I made each signature by hand. Enter FIMO brand polymer clay. Any brand of polymer clay works, but I quite like FIMO because it is stiff and holds its shape well with nice crisp edges. I made one signature out of paper pulp, and took an impression of it with the clay. The finished signatures are about one inch square and perfect for test tube stoppers.
The Mayan glyph is on the left. On the right is a mould made from a bead shaped like a little skull. At some point I decided I wanted to make a cover for the Ars Goetia, and if ever there was a project that requires lots of little skulls it’s the Ars Goetia.
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| The Ars Goetia |
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| Ars Goetia front cover |
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| Both covers |
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| Coptic binding detail |
I'm a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to books. There's nothing quite like a physical book with a nice binding, and I have a real soft spot for bookbinding. This binding is in a Coptic style, meaning that it has no spine as such - just covers stitched directly to the pages.
I had the good fortune to learn bookbindnig from the excellent Yoka Van Dyke. If you haven't seen her website, please do. It's very good.
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