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Creating the Molds

Lesson 4 from: 3D Mixed Media Art Displays

Stephenie Hamen

Creating the Molds

Lesson 4 from: 3D Mixed Media Art Displays

Stephenie Hamen

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Lesson Info

4. Creating the Molds

Lesson Info

Creating the Molds

So the next thing is probably one of my favorite obsessions, and that is making molds out of things. And, um, I just love this because I make molds out of the most random things that I can then turn into paper clay pieces, because what happens a lot of times like this is, uh, this is a vintage candy mold that I got at a show one time, but it's heavy enough. But if I put it on something it's going to add a lot of weight where people play when it drives us so light mary, but I don't get that extra weight. Plus, if I make a mold of this, I can use it twenty times instead of just once. So I pick up random things from antique stores or I go teo, the habitat for humanity store has, like, tons of homewares that you can get and stay home. Where's I should say things like doors and windows and knobs and polls, and so I grab all these vintage knobs and polls from places like that to use to make my molds. So I'm going to show you guys how to do a mould making first. So this is mold maker and it's...

. You use equal parts of both sides, and it just makes like a plastic silicone type mould. They make some better food grade, so if you wanted to, like, make a really cool moment molds figure food, you can do you like chocolates and things like that, but I would never do chocolates one day and paper clay the next day and just kind of keep your food ones for your food and your kraft ones for your crafts. So what you want to do is grab about equal parts of both colors and it's kind of like a poxy if you've ever used a poxy you just or made resin or any of that kind of stuff, you have a window of time and then it sets so you grab equal parts and you just put him together and you just kind of start squishing it up it's fine, that feels a lot like silly putty or plato or something like that and you end up with a mix of them together and you really want the color to come together. You don't want a lot of swirling it, you really want a good mix and what happens is you have five to ten minutes or so before it hardens and sets into place, so we're going to take this and I always do it on one of these craft mats from ranger just because it's nine stick and everything lips right off and it works out really good, so I feel like I kind of smash it out make sure that I don't see too much variance in the color there's no spot where there's a lot of bright white or a lot of bright yellow and it's all looking really good so we're gonna clean that up and then I'm gonna roll it into a ball now depending on what you're making you know the bigger the item you're going tio mold the more you're going to need I'm just going to this little knob top here and roll it into a ball or if I was doing this one I would probably roll it out like this so that it's closer to the shape of what I'm going to mold before I push it down and do it so if you've got something long rule it out that way but this is a nice little ball shape and all you're gonna dio put that down on your craft matt gonna take your item that you're holding and just pushed down into the mold maker and then I just usually go through kind of make sure that I have no gaps or anything and if I can I'll make sure I didn't go through to the bottom it doesn't look like I did and it's good if you push down all the way and you feel like oh I went through you've got a couple options you can pick it up, roll it back up start over or you can make a little bit more of that for later and then seal the bottom once you're able to lift it up without ruining it completely, you just take a little bit more of that flip your mold over after you remove the item and then add a little bit to the bottom and let it sit and then you'll fill in that hole that you have, so the paper clay or whatever you happen to use doesn't run through because you can use these two poor, resonant hot wax and anything that you want to make a mold or an item out of you can do that so we do that and then we're just gonna let it sit with the piece in it for about five to ten minutes then when you pull that out, the shape should stay and you've now got a fund mold that you can use tio make your paper clay items with so I'm going to go grab some molds that are done that's actually the two owls that I have up there and what you get I used different there's lots of different brands that make the mold maker so this greg and purple so it's just different brands but it's the same exact thing and what you get is when you pull it out is that our will perfectly inverted in there and this is fun a friend of one of my friends mom's was like moving and cleaning out her house that she had all of these kind of nineteen seventies owls hanging on her wall, it's like, I don't know what to do with them, and I'm like, I'll take him, so I made moulds out of them so that I can paint them in their night necessarily nineteen seventies. So thank you, linda, for my own and love them. And so now I just take the paper clay we used yesterday and what's nice about this, like I said is it dries its air dry it's, super lightweight and then it's painful, and it is absorbed media really well, so what we'll do is just take our paper, clay, and just kind of get it ready to use, and then we're going to roll it out. I'm just going to the purple owl here and you just take your clay and just kind of push it down into the mold. I just used my films and away it goes until I've done this one a few times, I grab almost the exact right amount. If you wrapped too little, you can just through a little bit more in there if you grab too much when you're done, just kind of scrape it off and put it back in the bag and you can use it later and then for good measure, I always stand up and put my palm on it and just really push it down, and they're really good, so we'll set this to the side and what you do, it's the same kind of thing you let that sit for five to ten minutes till it starts to really set into the form, then you can pop it out and let it air dry the rest of the way and you can continue making more. So if you want to make a bunch of them, you don't have to wait till this one is completely dry all the way through to take it out of the mold, and you can just keep remolding the same piece over and over again. And I know we talked yesterday when we did some paper clay work, but for those who didn't see it, you can paper clay air drives. But if you're impatient like I am, sometimes when I'm doing a lot that I want to use right away, you put it in the oven, I usually do it like two hundred so that it's not super hide, you know, mostly what that does is just takes the moisture out of the air and just gives it a tiny bit of heat to just start. Setting it but I don't like to go any hotter than that because you start to get cracks and things so usually I put it in turn the oven nine so it adjust to the heat leave it on for about an hour, turn the heat off and just leave it in there because it's now this dry, arid space for the paper plate tio start to dry, so check this so now I can already pull this off of here and none of the media stayed so it's already starting to set and as I lifted out what's always fun with the vintage pieces of chunks of rust sometimes come off and things in there, but now I've got my mold made and if I wanted to do a whole bunch of these, I could just do several of them of the same shape if I wanted and just keep doing it over and over again. So once I started mold making, it became a bit of an addiction and I was like, oh, I wonder what that world would look like? But the thing I always tell people is, you know, you don't ever want to kind of really go up and around and because when you've got to get it out and second you've got to get something in, so if you're wanting to do something that's more three d to half in one mold half in the other mold and then you have to basically glue the pieces together so if you're doing something that's truly three dimensional you kind of have to do with the mold in portions and in parts just so that you can actually get the media later in and out pretty easily so you guys I will bring you you guys have mold maker you want to use the long out well, there you go like I'll bringing my owls because I was ahead them up there and here's a little door knob you're doing that someone from online says they have a serving tray that has like some kind of finish how could they perceive tio make this project out of that? Is that something we could still do or maybe some creativity? Yeah guys just kind of got that slick lack ary finish you got a couple options you can stand it down, which is what I would do I would definitely take like a heavy grit sandpaper and really get in there and kind of just scrub that lacquer off and you don't have to get off completely but what you need to dio is make a layer so that when you put something else on it has something to it here to nose and kind of slide off that super shiny finish so what I would do is just stand it down as much as you can and then and even like steel wool will work if you don't have heavy grit sandpaper you grab some steel wool and get in there and really scratch it up mark it up I would put like a layer of some sort of primaries like a jess oh down and do that and then work up from there ok, so those we got mold done I'm going to test my luck here on the the owl it's coming out very carefully because it's still very wet but as it pops out you get your owl shape so I've got extra bits up here once it's dry you can just take a really fine sandpaper and just stand that offer if you've got like a little even like those emery board nail file things that'll take off that extra paper once it's dry off the edges but what's fun about this is now I've got a blank canvas rather than like that light brown version that I know is going to take all the pain all the media that I want to put to it to paint it color it and really kind of give it its own personality down the road so I'm gonna put this guy to the side and let him dry and later he'll magically be one hundred percent dry because I might have pre made all of the paper play pieces that we need for today ahead of time and impact them

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3D Mixed Media Quote Samples.pdf

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3D Mixed Media Supply Lists.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

This class was wonderful. I enjoyed Stefenie's teaching style and that the entire project (except the paperclay pieces, which needed drying time) could be completed in just a day. She introduced many media that were new to me. I would never have accomplished so much in such a short time without her inspiring project and encouragement. I completed my first shadow box two days later. I will watch any class Stefenie teaches at CL!

Student Work

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