Guest Post – Paper Mache Body Cast

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Today’s post is by Kerry Stent. I’m very excited about this post because we’ve received a large number of questions from people who want to learn how to make a paper mache body cast.  I’m so glad Kerry was willing to share his experiences.  Kerry lives in the small city of Nelson, at the top of New Zealand’s South Island, which he describes as “a great sunny place, abundant in artist of all kinds.”

And now, I’ll turn it over to Kerry:

This isn’t a lesson on “how to,”  just an  account of how it went for me.

At the end of last year, my oldest daughter Kelsi wanted to celebrate the end of her child bearing at the birth of her 3rd one, a girl, Sophia Jade, by having a belly cast made. So, at about 3 weeks out from the due date we had Melanie, her younger sister, create the partial body mold of this wonderful fecundate belly.

At this stage of the project…girls only allowed.

The mould was made of 2 layers of plaster paris bandage, with extra layers here and there, and a liberal coating of plaster wiped over the whole thing, the same used for fixing up broken limbs. A German product called Hartmann Plastrona was used, this stuff sets in under 5 minutes but needs another 30 to harden off. You can buy kits containing everything you need for this process. There are also synthetic flexible products preferred by those who produce body casts professionally, as they give a more highly defined finish, (not a single wrinkle escapes!!)

From this plaster mould a paper mache casting was made, in this case the mix being simply egg carton and wall paper paste. Melanie had to return to Auckland, she is a full time student there, so dear old dad was left, or should I say instructed,  to finish the project off.

2 or 3 weeks later the casting was pulling away from the mould as it hardened, and on easing the paper mache casting from the mould it was clear there had been significant shrinkage, plus it was very rough. So it was smoothed over with wall board finishing compound, which sadly made things even worse. Not only did the shrinkage worsen it pulled badly out of shape presumably due to differential shrinkage, really disappointing…oh well, not good enough for me, so went on line to see if there are any artists out there who specialize in paper mache, and this is when I made contact with Jonni, and learned of her paper mache clay recipe.

The mould was a little worse for wear at this stage.

Casting No.2 was  much smoother, hence requiring way less finishing, and I was eager to get it painted. Some annoying cracking was present at this stage that needed repairing. For painting I chose some aerosol products, a sandable undercoat and full gloss top coat, which gave a great finish, but a short while later, further cracking appeared, right through the paint and into the clay…Grrrr…It had gone from looking hopefully finished to yet more repairs needed. I could only conclude the paint was too hard and rigid for the paper mache substrate.

The project was abandoned for a while, being that fed up with it.

When getting around to finishing off this job, I chose good old fully flexible acrylic house paint, it’s designed to move with its substrate and bridge blemishes.  So, at the moment, the body is the same color as my house, funny that! and the paint has held up perfectly.  I brushed the paint so its not quite up to the finish intended, its not too bad, one day it will get a spray finish, but the recipient is in no hurry, and will probably choose another color.Overall, I am very satisfied with the result. The photo is of when it had its first paint job.

So.. some observations:

The mould: don’t skimp on this, at the Community Art Centre, I mentioned moulds that are for reuse, are a good 1″  thick, mine only just made it through the second casting. If something goes wrong first time, a mould still intact is essential.

Painting: use a flexible coating, there might well be other products than acrylic, again, this what the folk down the centre use and recommend, but artists quality…not left over house paint.

Layering, for future projects I would use this, other artists recommend it, I believe it leads to a stronger more consistent outcome.

Clay mix: stick to proven recipes where appropriate, take care to maintain proportions if batching up large quantities, I am sure I must have been rather light on the finishing compound, perhaps being a little stingy due to only buying a small quantity of the product.. I just feel my project is not quite as strong as it could have been.

Experiment –  you will be surprised the difference made by minor adjustments will make. Whats fine for 1 application might not be the best for another.

In Hindsight:

As a first time user I wish I had researched a little more, there is so much information on offer. I think my mix was not dry enough. I think an amount of more robust fibre could have been used, i.e. my mix was all toilet tissue and having recently found  samples, 1 that is about 30% egg carton and 70% toilet tissue seems to be as tuff as old boots, lastly possibly not careful enough with batching up.

Having beat myself up, I am still happy with the final result.