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Here’s the 3 section plaster master to be worked on for the larger panel once it’s dry. All 3 sections and the narrow strip need to be assembled together in a nice  squared shape and molds made then  of it. The narrow strip on the right needs to be trimmed and cleaned up yet.   The new Art Deco model 8B plaster masters are now laid out on a board and being prepared for the mold making process.The gaps on the bottom (at at the top out of view) between the four sections will all need to be filled and then smoothed and the texture blended in so it all…

The model is set up now to make the mold tomorrow  

I now have the modelling finished on this master clay model, once it dries a bit I’ll be going over the surface and cleaning it up more. Once it’s dry the first mold will be made and then I’ll be combining 3 plaster casts of this to make one larger panel shape, then two molds will be made of that- one for casting interior cast-stone and the other for pressing clay for the terracotta version.  

I have to finish the lower 1/3rd of this yet, I hope to get it done this weekend, but it is progressing nicely and I’m excited about seeing the eventual pressed terracotta version using 3 of these together to form a repeated design panel. On the left is an original 1930 bronze from the Women’s House of Detention, 6th Ave, Greenwich Village,  NYC demolished 1973.

  NOTE: This post never made it to the blog originally, it sat in cueue a long time, this model was finished a good year ago. Here’s today’s model progress, mostly working on the right half: The major modelling is now finished and he’s hollowed out, soon as the clay gets drier I will be cleaning up the surfaces and details. Side view

Now that the clay is just about right for working with it I did some refining and cleanup on the upper 2/3rds of the model today. I’ll be doing work on the lower 1/3rd tomorrow. The “window” of workability of the clay is fairly short once it reaches this point of firming up, made shorter too by the fact there isn’t a lot of mass in this relatively small model and the humidity in the house is very low. Even wrapped in plastic and kept sprayed periodically with water it still progresses towards dry so I need to finish this up more or less by next weekend.