Form 2 Formation was a project where we had to come up with forms and shapes ,through the process of playing around with materials like plaster of paris.
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Understanding Form and Space
FeviStick resembles a simple cylindrical form and a used eraser resembles a cuboidal form.
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Making connections with a learning from other projects
While working on this project I took indirect reference from FVL-2 from Day-5 and Thinklab activity 7: Thinking tools
Both the above references helped me in working for the this project. Breaking down a complex form into simpler forms. It helped me explore this by the simple act of addition, subtraction, combining forms or transforming shapes, this led to the creation of new forms.
Plaster of Paris
Plaster of Paris, quick-setting gypsum plaster consisting of a fine white powder (calcium sulfate hemihydrate). It hardens when moistened and allowed to dry. Known since ancient times, plaster of paris is so called because of its preparation from the abundant gypsum found near Paris. Plaster of Paris has its own pros and cons and it has its own rule book of do's and don's which I learnt from my own experience of working with it.
Pros
- It expands very slightly upon drying or setting
- It is not likely to cause cracking of surfaces when the mould is made with perfection
- It is easy to spread and level
- It mixes up easily with water
- It can be poured into a mould in different batches when the consistency is the same
Cons
- It can not be mixed with cement
- It can not be used in moist situations. The summer is the best season to use it in
- Thin slabs of it can break without to much effort
- If the consistency is more watery/ liquid-y then the form will take more time for it to dry
- If the consistency is less watery/ liquid-y then the POP will harden before pouring
Do's
- I found the ratio of 5 is to 5 of POP and water to work the best for me, but resulted in a watery pours but that helped mitigate any air bubbles that might have been caught in the thicker pours that I did while experimenting
- Using your hands to make sure the mixture has no hard lumps is key, plus it makes the overall process more wholesome and sensational
- Make sure to tap the mould, it lets the air gaps to come out
- Fast, consistent pours is key
- Keep the mould out in the sun to let the POP to dry
Dont's
- Thick pours are not recommended as it seemed to harden up and heat up (meaning the chemical reaction had started) way before I could even pour the POP into my moulds
- Not tap the mould will result in air gaps/ bubbles to come up
- On making a few batches which were more watery than what I needed, those resulted in taken days or even weeks at time for them to dry
- On opening the mould before a day or two of letting the POP harden, resulted in un even surfaces and broken points or edges
the below images will support what I have written above
Conclusion
- I needed the POP to dry fast. The only way I could make the process of drying the POP faster would have been by peeling off one part of the mould and letting the rest stay in the cast/ mould and putting it under direct sunlight.
- I think some of the pour/ mixtures that I made were thinner and therefore it took longer for the POP to dry. I don't know how the teachers started peeling off their moulds within half an hour of them pouring their mixtures.
- My POP was damp even after 3 days of keeping it direct sunlight. I think I should have made a few holes from where the POP could breathe and hence let the water evaporate.
- I even struggled a lot with peeling of the mould off of the POP. I could have done something to prevent that from happening, but I haven't had that much experience with working with POP to figure out the answer for that.
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I realised that consistency is key. Developing a good consistency not only in POP terms but also in my work ethics. Seeing the different kinds of consistency in my last form and seeing the way my form turned out made me realise one thing. That is if my work ethics have different consistencies just like the POP then it will show in the end product for sure, just like it showed in the final form.
Personal Learnings
The forms I made (above) are in the order of my first POP creation to the last one. Starting from the top, the first is a simple solid cone, which I made fairly easily, it came out well and gave me a lot of confidence to move on. I used OHP paper and normal tape. Next one that I made was where I took four, 3-sided equilateral pyramids (I added a wire in the form just incase) which ended up exceeding my expectations. Next form was poorly planned out hence it broke and only the cone was still together from the form. The last form still has a lot of irregularities mainly because I had to make 3-4 batches of POP, each batch was different in terms of their consistency (one batch was extremely thick in terms of consistency) and hence there is a huge air gap one corner.
Most of them have a lot of irregularities like, different sized air gaps, broken points and edges, one form broke off completely and only a cone remained which was held together by a wire. I included a wire in almost all of them except for the first form that I created, but as it turned out not all of them stayed together near the outer surfaces.
I enjoyed the working with POP, much more than working with paper. Taking that risk each time of directly make a mould from sun board and making the POP mixture was worth it and saved a lot of time. Because I did not need to make a paper model first.
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