Post #744394 by danlovestikis on Sun, Jun 7, 2015 8:04 AM

If you haven't already checked out Dawn Frazier's newest creations please take some time to do that, they are so beautiful. I'm a fan of all she creates. If Dan hadn't covered over our walls before I discovered her art we would have many more of her Polynesian landscapes.

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Now it's time to wrap up the mold making sessions for the Sacramento Crawl mug. This is the final piece #5.

To do the last piece I had to dig out all the clay and the plastic jar from the hole.

It was a lot of stuff.

I got it all out except for the circles of cardboard. They looked clean so my expectations that the clay and cardboard protected the bottom of my mug was confirmed.

There it is ready to have it's piece poured.

But first came all the layers of mold soap.

I wore a plastic bag over my hand while wiping off the soap between coats. It protected me from the poison.

Dan decided that putting the mold on my work bench for the last piece would enable him to clean the garage sooner.

I make super heavy molds.

Now in place we can get back to work.

I want to over pour the plaster so I made little clay dams to hold it from running over.

We can mix small batches in a bowl with an electric mixer from a thrift shop.

This is the easiest piece to make.

On the last two molds that we made I stopped banging on the side to remove air bubbles. They seem to rise to the top anyway.

Dan the clean up man. My hero.

45 minutes later the plaster was hard.

We used a rasp to level this last piece with the other pieces.

I chiseled around the last piece so that it wasn't so bonded to the other pieces. This prevents chunks from breaking off.

We didn't have any leaks while pouring plaster so the clean up wasn't too bad.

Dan rejoiced by dressing up for the clean up job. He's so cute.

The next day we took the mold apart. First time around most molds need a good whack to separate the pieces.

I use a vegetable chopper. It's one of my favorite tools for all sorts of clay work.

Dan said every piece was heavy.

Did it work??? I'll show you tomorrow. Cheers, Wendy