Metamorphosis-sand casting using plaster!

So to star off with you get a good lump of sand, siv all the large lumps out if needed! You must then wet it so that when you actually try and sculpt with it, it doesn't just crumble. Don't make a egg shape like the bottom picture because it doesn't give you much room to work on and wastes a good amount of your sand. Spread your sand so it's approximately 1/1.5ft squared wide and about 2-3inches thick. This will depend on what your making but for initial experiment to learn the craft of sand casting this is a good size. After this you can then start to create your cast. What's interesting about sand casting is the fact that you can do it by either making your sculpture in or around the sand. In this experiment I did the 'in' sand cast this was because I wanted to see how I worked thinking about everything the opposite way around because when the plaster is poured it'll set onto the shape not around it. Examples of internal sand casts are often baby hands and feet but in my case I did my face! As a safety precaution and for comfort I placed a layer of clingfilm over the sand so it didn't go in my eyes etc. I then got one of my fellow class mates to slowly apply a fair amount of pressure so that I didn't strain my neck trying to push down on the wet sand. The photo below is the final outcome as you can tell the experiment wasn't the best example of how plaster and sand can be used to create very acrurate casts. This was because I used to thick a layer of cligfilm thus taking away some of the detailing. However when cast some of the detail came through(picture not shown).