Last week got me really excited about my degree show and the possibilities of how I can display my work in a weird way. Having made a start by making the rubber silicon hand, I wanted to delve a little deeper into modifying the cast to fit its purpose for the show.
I'm hopefully aiming to make four rubber models of my arms, cast from the elbow, down to the hands. I am then going to somehow attach them to the wall panel so that hey look like they're breaking out. If I can position them as I wanting to, they are going to holding either pieces of my work or business cards and promo pieces. By creating something a little out of the ordinary that people can touch and interact with, I'm hoping I'll draw the viewers in. I've ordered some temporary tattoo paper to test if its possible to transfer some of my illustrations onto them. The problem I've faced so far is that the rubber silicon has an almost sweaty feel to it. With this in mind, I think it could prevent the images applying correctly unless I can somehow change the feel/texture. So far I've tried washing them in warm water and soap but that seemed to have a completely reverse effect. I've literally no idea how or why but it left the hand feeling even clammier and gross. The only thing that seems to work okay for the moment is to coat it all in a very thin coat of plain flour. It seems to soak up any moisture but does look a bit crap and literally like I've just put flour on a rubber hand. Weird.
Back to the proposal bit. As I'm wanting the hands and arms to be used to grip and hold various bits and bobs, I need to find a way of securing the two elements together. I considered using different strengths of glue, but ideally I would like to have the option of being able to reposition the arms and use them again. In a previous post I spoke about coming up with a solution to fixing them to the wall. Having looked about online, I think the best thing to do is to insert a metal rod into the cask before it sets. I'll then just need to drill a hole in the exhibition board and screw something on the back to keep it steady. Rather then using glue, I wanted to create a skeletal like frame inside the joints so I could move them about but not fixing them permanently to anything. As I'd already made a hand test its a little late to do this now, but I wanted to find a way around to see if it worked okay.
Having got hold of some strong wire and a pair of decent pliers I had a play with inserting cut pieces into the cut off wrist. The wire seemed to hold its shape when being forced in to the silicon, and wasn't too difficult to push through. It was a little tricky to make sure the ends didn't break through the side of the fingers but even when it did, the hole seemed to close up and disappear. I think that inserting the wire like this is a much easier approach compared to laying it into the setting plastic. There's too much of a risk of the wire not being central and poking out of the sides.
The wire seemed to work dead good and was easily moved about. It was pretty disturbing turning the wire ends with the pliers as they moved 360 degrees like something out of the Exorcist. I had too much fun creeping the majority of the studio out playing about with it but all in all, it worked great. The wire was also strong enough to hold items as well so there was no need to glue anything.
I was impressed with the strength of the grip that the fingers have got now and don't think I'll need to do much more with them. However, the sweaty texture of the silicon seemed to prevent the book from sliding out so that might be an issue I have to deal with later if I have to coat it in some sort of chalk/powder. I'm dead pleased it worked as I thought it might end up being a nice idea for the show but nothing coming of it. Next step is to try dying the melted solution to get a realistic skin tone and applying the transfer tattoos.
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