Sand Casting

Today at the OKCMOA I shared two kinds of sculptures. We made relief and 3-D sculptures. They are turned out wonderful! This is a project your children will love and an idea you can incorporate with different school subjects as well. Not only is it fun for fossils and Science, but many sculpture artists use molds to create their works and this is an easy way for children to learn about how that is done.

First we started with the relief sculptures. We accomplished these by sand casting, or making molds in sand.

First we start with damp sand in a dish. The sand needs to be a little wet so it will take the imprint of the object.


I told the children to smooth the sand with their hands and choose objects that they wanted to mold. I had a variety of items; little plastic bugs and army men, pony beads, shells etc. You gently push the item into the sand and remove it.





Then I mixed the plaster and poured it over the sand tapping the dish lightly to remove any air bubbles. NOTE: NEVER PUT PLASTER INTO A SINK.

I have several portions of plaster measured out so all I need to do is add water and have the kids start mixing.





The molds need to sit for 30 minutes!

What do we do for 30 minutes?



Make more sculptures! We talked about 3-D sculptures and used scrap paper to create them.













30 minutes is up! Let's check on our sand castings.

They are ready! Gently unmold over a bucket or box, whatever you have on hand. You can re-use the sand. Use your hands and then a paint brush to lightly brush away the sand away revealing the items you pressed in the sand. The kids were amazed!



















For sand casting you will need:
-damp sand
-deep plate
-plaster of paris, water and mixing bowls and disposable spoon
-items to mold

For paper sculptures you will need:
-paper
-scissors
-glue sticks
-color tape optional

Fabulous Frescoes

To paint fresco means to paint on fresh, moist plaster with pigments dissolved in water. I changed it up a bit for many reasons. The biggest reason I found is that little kids will push a paintbrush right through wet plaster. So, we painted on mostly dry plaster with tempera paints. They turned out great!

There are many brands of plaster. I got a big bucket at Michael's. Check the ratio. Mine was about 2 cups plaster to one cup water. Mix, mix, mix! I poured the plaster into these red plastic solo plates that I found at walmart. They were pretty deep and in a nice shape. Give them a few taps to remove air bubbles.

You can see this painted fresco in the plate here.



This plate also made it easy for the fresco to pop out of when completely dry. It begins to harden right away setting up pretty good in 15 minutes and hard in 30 minutes depending on several factors. I would say leave them in molds for at least 4 hours to be completely hard.

We were trying to focus on Venice using the new exhibition as inspiration, but sometimes we just want to paint what we want! :) Here are some of our wonderful creations made at Drop in Art by children of all ages.

You will need:
-plaster of paris, water, measuring cup, disposable mixing bowls and disposable mixing utensils.
-solo plates
-paintbrushes
-tempera paints

This one is popped out of mold: