Saturday, September 13, 2008

...lose some.

Craft shops used to sell plaster of Paris. Now they sell something called *modeling plaster* which does horrible things like this. Disaster of the first magnitude. It hardened so fast we had no hope. It was only fit for the bin though Ditz did make a 1/2 hearted attempt to use it.
We had just enough left to try again ~ using something considerably smaller.

The really sad part is that Ditz was far less enthused than I expected so it was a struggle to get her involved to start with. Art is, apparently, now considered *baby work*. *sigh*. It never did what a fresco is supposed to do because it hardened far too fast & I got shocked looks because I wanted proper plaster. In our instant society it seems the kids can't wait to paint their plaster models so we now have this super quick drying stuff & thwarted fresco~ists.
It was a far better science experiment. We had quite a discussion about why the plaster was heating up & how hot it would get before it hardened & cooled off but as an art exercise it was not a success. Win some, lose some I guess.

4 comments:

molytail said...

I don't know if that plaster stuff could be found around here or not either - you mean the white powdery stuff that you mix up, right? (Or I think? It's been years since I used that stuff for anything) ....All I've ever seen in the few stores here is modeling clay - no mixing, nothing, different thing....

*I* think it was a really neat idea! I went off to google 'fresco' because I wasn't familiar with the term and look now, Ditz might not have been all that keen, but you've given an art lesson all the way 'round the world LOL ....

>^..^<

Mrs. Darling said...

Oh you poor thing! LOL you can still buy plaster paris in our caft shops thankfully!

Diane Shiffer said...

aww.. i'm so sorry your frescoes didn't turn out:( regular plaster is in plenteous supply here, but i suppose that doesn't help, now does it?

i just purchased a new type of clay today.. something called FIMO, brightly colored stuff which you form and bake. we are making models of laura ingall's log cabin out of cardstock and i thought it would be great fun to fill them with tiny furniture, quilt covered beds and foodstuffs stored up for the winter. seems like it will be fun, but one never knows for sure, eh? we'll see how it goes in actuality, lol.

Ganeida said...

Ditz used fimo when she was doing minatures. It worked really well for that so your stuff should turn out well.