Ahhhhh……ahhhhh…..Augustus!
The Mystery Build 2012 challenge was living up to its name as Christine experienced challenges while working with the plaster of paris. As you can see, I am standing next to the first two Augustus Gloop pieces that Christine cast in the molds. During the first attempt, she tried to carefully remove Augustus from the mold but one of his legs broke off. For the second attempt she managed to remove him from the mold without breaking the legs. However, when Christine tried to bend the wire embedded within the plaster near his foot, both of his legs broke. Yikes! Keep in mind that Christine only had a limited amount of plaster supplied in the kit, so she needed a good Augustus piece before she ran out of plaster. She realized that in order to get an undamaged Augustus, she would need to be sure that the plaster was completely dried before removing it from the mold. Also, she realized that she needed to rethink how to connect the pieces to the base with the wire from the kit.
Attaching the characters to the base
Since there was only school glue and one mini hot glue stick provided as adhesives in the kit, Christine needed to figure out a way to attach the characters to the golden ticket base. She decided to embed wire in the plaster of paris as the it hardened in the molds. Initially she wanted to bend the wire from the plaster pieces and secure the wire to the base. After her second Augustus Gloop flop, Christine knew that she did not want to risk bending the wire to attach the pieces to the base. She decided that the best way to attach them would be to drill holes in the base where the characters would stand. Then she could avoid having to bend the wire and insert the wire directly into the drilled holes. She also utilized the wooden pieces contained in the Mystery Build 2012 kit. Using the wooden pieces also aided in inserting the wires into the base because it gave Christine a more substantial foundation to drill the holes. The large dowel worked out perfectly for a large candy stick. The wooden balls worked well for pieces of candy. And the zip lock baggy material would be ideal wrappers for some of the candy pieces. The mini wooden dowel and wooden circles attached together with some hot glue, ended up being some terrific lollipops to include in her sugary wonderland.
From plaster white to living color
After the holes were drilled into the base, Christine was able to place her plaster characters onto the golden ticket flying carpet. The wires remained unbent and were easy to insert into the drilled holes. Best of all, there was no damage to the any of the characters. Here’s how the piece progressed from a chalky white plaster surface to a full and vibrant array of colors. Did you notice the candy wrappers made with the baggies?
Additional pieces for the Mystery Build 2012 challenge
There was a package of some air dry putty and two mini packs of air dry clay in the Mystery Build 2012 kit. Christine decided to a create an assortment of candy pieces from the putty and clay. Then afterward she would decide which pieces to include on the final piece. The ones shown on the right hand side above were some extra pieces that she decided not to add to her final piece. On the left hand side of the photo, there are two versions of Charlie, one in an antiqued surface and the other in a regular surface. Christine had cast two Charlie pieces to test out if she wanted to use an antiqued surface on the Willy Wonka characters. Thankfully, even after making three separate Augustus pieces and two Charlie pieces, Christine ended up having some leftover plaster of paris. Phew, she didn’t run out!
The final piece “Pure Imagination” for the Mystery Build 2012 Competition
I, Ralphie the Bunny, had to pose with the memorable characters from Willy Wonka on Christine’s “Pure Imagination” piece. She named her piece after one of her favorite songs from the movie. Christine wanted to capture the feeling of “pure imagination” in her piece for the competition.
Coming up soon, there will be voting open to the public for the People’s Choice award for the contest. I will let you know when the voting opens.
Check out the rest of the Mystery Build posts by clicking the links below
An artist who aspires to become a children's book illustrator. Stays young at heart and an avid daydreamer. When the weather permits, I enjoy visiting/biking on the nature trail near my house. Visiting the trail has brought me many hours of enjoyment and relaxation. My camera is usually by my side while on the trail. I like to try to find the small and unnoticeable as subjects for my photos. And of course flowers and plant life encompass many of my subjects.
