Making a Maquette

Week 2

Okay, I've decided to follow the Destiny brief and I have started to formulate some ideas from the research I have been conducting; I'll continue this as I work through the design development stage as new sources will always influence the eventual outcome.  Today I'm going to make a maquette in order to explore the viability of one of my ideas.

I love the mythological idea that someone's destiny can be woven into a thread so I want to explore the expression of that life is stored in a thread, the thread being the vessel that holds their fate.  I've an idea that seeks to express the thread as a vessel but I want to disguise it in plain sight so what better way than to make an actual vessel from thread!

I started off by carving a semi-sphere from polystyrene foam and used that as the form onto which I attached UPVa glue soaked twine - I used the word 'entwined' in last week's blog so that got me thinking about using twine as my thread.  It also has a nice earthliness in-keeping with early Nordic living.

Once formed it was a matter of creating a mould dam from timber with clay used to seal the joints and prevent any seepage of plaster.  I also placed the form onto a thin bed of clay to raise it up from the base which would later provide an instep to work with when casting.

My plaster mix was made using a 50:50:50 mix of fine plaster, flint and water.  I used this mix as the flint provides strength should I decide to fire the mould later.  I made sure the pour was slow and even so as to avoid air traps, bubbles and a close contouring of the bowl.

This picture shows some raised dimples in each corner.  I had considered making a two part mould which would have consisted of this bowl mould and a second mould that would have formed the inner plug with a gap between both for the glass to form.  The dimples would have helped the two mould align properly. As this was a maquette I chose not to do this.

The plaster has captured the texture of the twine really well and, as an added bonus, there are small threads from the twine imbedded and protruding from the plaster.  The likelihood is that these threads would burn off in a kiln firing but the opportunity for them to make an impression, or indeed miraculously survive a firing are intriguing prospects.

For the purposes of this maquette I am going to use wax to form the bowl.  This will give me some indication of how glass would pick up the textures.  I am using a wax melting bowl and ordinary craft paraffin wax beads.

It can be a slow process melting the wax and pouring, you have to be careful not to let the wax set in layers as this can cause shrinkage variations and the result could become a contorted model.

Once the mould is full you will see some shrinkage on the upper surface as the wax cools and contracts.  Keep some hot wax to back fill this.

Once the wax cooled I carefully cut the mould into segments to free the wax maquette.

Breaking the mould, and its resultant parts, always fascinates me; it reminds me of discoveries from an archaeological dig.

Here is the resultant maquette, threads and all.  I sat it on a light source to give me an impression of what a glass piece would look like if lit. I like this result, it has given me both food for thought and confirmation of my design idea.