Hands

Reflection

Holding A River was made with the intention of experimentation. The materials I used were new to me, so the main goal was to learn how to work with plaster. Recently I have become more interested in how to take my art to a more technically challenging level. In this project, I attempted to create a piece that utilized both negative and positive space, and that played with color. Working with imperfections was an important theme for this piece, as plaster doesn’t always work, and sometimes you have to make do with what you have. Overall the piece isn't technically as good as iIwould have liked, however I did enjoy the process and what I learned along the way. Sometimes that experimentation is more important than the final piece because it can impact how I choose to make art in the future. Hands are interesting to work with, I would like to try again at some point.

Plaster formed the base of the hands, with acrylic painted over it. I added sculpting clay on top of this, which did not get to fire –as you can not fire plaster with the clay– so it is still semi malleable.

In starting this piece I had no experience with plaster, so it was all very new. I made two sculptures, one of which I experimented with by adding india ink to the plaster before it hardened. This was interesting to see because india ink is a water based pigment and it would lose color if water accidentally got on it, even after it was dry. I tried sculpting into this piece, but changed back to working on the piece with two hands, that eventually became my final project. Another experiment was carving into the already painted plaster. This proved difficult, as the paint didn't cut too well. It was helpful in learning how acyrlic paint will affect one when they are carving into a softer medium underneath.