Scarab Beetle Statue Evaluation
Over the past five weeks we have brought the concept of creating an egyptian statue from paper to reality. Through our own individual research and work we have each succeeded in our own ways. The opportunity this task propsed to us allowed us to experiment with our skils in alternate ways than what we have experienced before. It has brought us to new levels of skill in our prop making whilst still retaining some of the familiarity of last years work. The project has enabled us to work on larger scales than previous projects and also gave us more insight in our knowledge of materials that we knew from last year such as polystyrene. No project goes perfectly but the more we have worked on projects the more I feel I learn. Or in other words, I feel I learn equally from my mistakes as from my success. However, lessons learned from my mistakes I remember to a greater degree.
I approached this project in a different way this time than how I have with previous projects and found it to be a better way to begin the work. By this I mean that when I went to on the research trip to the British Museum I filled a page with drawings and observations of the selected object. Most of the notes were irrelevant but I feel helped in the long run. The immersion this approach gave me allowed me to have a better understanding of the model than the life drawing method we had been using previously. I suppose I can transfer this skill to shows by writing and drawing in small sketchbooks when discussing the designs and concept with the artist. I believe this techinque to be better than the life drawing as I am able to go back over the notes and drawings to remind myself of what the vision for the project is. Whilst life drawing does this to a great level it only works once and if you forget the vision you learned through life drawing then partaking in it in the first place would have been pointless. I am happy to use this method and use it to help shape my future work even if briefs do not require work of this kind. I hope with it giving me a better understanding I can produce better quality of work.
When deciding on my statue I chose the scarab, not because of a need to chose something that was a easy option, but because I felt like it was the only statue there I could do realistically within the time constraints and achieve a level of perfection with it I would be satisfied with. I liked the idea of creating a smooth stone surface that would be a stark contrast between its polystyrene origins. During the time at the musuem I felt it was important to explore the other rooms that was there and 'shop' around the egyptian sculpture room to enhance my vision of my making process and while I did not find anything that I would have preferred to have done (save for the Rosetta stone), my research did help to bring a understanding of the the level of smooth texture I needed to achieve on my piece.
When we came to partake in a life drawing session connecting to the project the session was supposed to give us a better understanding of our statues. However, the session I felt only helped with my drawing as always but when it came to understanding the statue's shape, texture and shadows I felt it did little more than sitting viewing the object in the museum a few days prior. I felt the session would have been better used by trying to recreate our stones colours and damaged areas. However, drawing it in its entirity somewhat ditracted from the learning experience. As mentioned before my intial approach was a way I felt, was much better at obtaining a better level of knowledge looking at around the statue.
When it came to marking up my large mistake of scaling which I mentioned previously, led to time lost that I regret not being able to resolve sooner. I did however have the foresight to do the intial marking out in pencil only going over in pen when I was sure my lines were right. Once I started cutting, the piece began taking shape and allowed me to visualise my end goal more clearly -something I felt every step enhanced more. The rest of the carving process went by relatively straightforward and without event. I was happy no accidents happened with the knives of which I was very careful with. The steady process of slowly picking away at the polystyrene allowed me to examine what I was doing exactly with the material and how I was using the equipment to carve it. Slowly but surely teaching me better techniques with the tools at my disposal.
I was glad that throughout the process I wore my jump suit because we ended up with a sea of white baubles covering the workshop. Unfortunately when working with a material such as polystyrene such a mess is to be expected. In this situation it is better to know how to contain the mess rather than preventing it. Also devising ways to clear up afterwards that allows you to be efficient. I say this because one of my work colleagues tipped a open bin of polystyrene baubles into a open top bin and the wind spread the mess over the courtyard -we are still finding bits of it today. I would advise bagging any and all poly whether for binning or storing to be kept in black plastic bin bags.
When it came to fibreglass and jesmoniting the model I found that due to the temperature of the room and the quantities of materials the jesmonite would dry before I could finish off a batch leading to a few tubs of hardened jesmonite to be thrown in the bin. -I'll bring it up that it is also important to throw it in the bin and not down the sink as after coming back on a Monday morning we had found someone had poured an bucket of jesmonite down the sink and it had set. I fixed my problem by as I mentioned prior, changing the quantity of the catalyst and replacing the lost material with water. This drastically reduced the drying time and allowed me to always use all of my mixture even if it was a little runny. I would like to note the fact that I found it peculiar the mixture I was originally drying so quickly. The room was relatively cold and jesmonite sets at warmer temperatures so technically it shouldn't have set so rapidly.
During the time of jesmoniting the model I attempted to give the model a base so it would fit to a display stand better. However, despite numerous attempts the contact adhesive did not achieve a strong enough hold and so the base would fall off. I resolved this by adding a thin layer of jesmonite to the base to give it a smoother base for the board to grip on. This alteration proved successful.
The sanding process afterwards took a substantial amount of time as due to my statue being incredibly smooth my work had to reflect this. If I failed to replicate this the statue would not be able to give a convincing stone aesthetic. I used many different variations of sanding blocks to achieve the smoothest surface possible even going back over with jesmonite in some cases to fill dipped areas. This was beneficial for areas where the fibreglass shell broke open due to air bubbles underneath. However, I sanded the edges down filled the small dip with jesmonite and allowed it to dry before sanding it again. It toke me a while to achieve a stage I was happy with but once I felt it was right I applied the sealant and began the painting.
The first layer of paint found difficulty griping the surface but I found this was due to a combination of grease, dust and damp sealant. These things I rectified before continuing. I waited for the sealant to fully dry before using a thick brush to dust off the work. The grease was in such minimal portions it wasn't necessary to do anything about. Once these were rectified I painted the primer and base coats on. As I went through the painting stage I felt my earlier assessment of glazing the perfected areas and then experimenting over them was a successful approach which I derived from the sampling phase. With each new layer of paint the piece looked more and more heavy. By the end of it psychologically I had convinced myself the table wouldn't be able to support the weight of the stone statue but somehow it did. This is a point anyone who I show pictures of my statue to rectify usaully in their disbelief that it is made of polystyrene.
I was a little disappointed the display base I created I misunderstood the height I could have given it. However, this proved a happy mistake as the area it was finally displayed in was surrounded by taller objects. This gives this emphasis on the statue I found to be compelling to believe the work I had created was a success. I hope that given its indoor resting place this statue will be allowed to stay in its place for years to come. I hope next time to change this display mistake by assessing the select area before making or marking out anything.
The scarab beetle proved to be a significant challenge to begin our second year on developing what we had learnt and taking us to a new level of understanding of our craft. I was immensley pleased with the final outcome and particualrly happy with the paint job the statue received despite not being incredibly happy with my painting samples. I think from this I can take away knowledge of newer materials, a few new modelling techniques and a insight into the more in depth side of prop making that we previously had only glimpsed.