Uta Brouet. Wandering.

A busy week!

On Wednesday 23 April I went to see the Welder Steve Bate in Horton Heath, Eastleigh Hants.

Pure Bliss! Judge for yourself from the pics below! How often do you get greeted  by a curious free roaming pony?

Steve has done an excellent job at a reasonable price, I can’t recommend him more:

Steve Bate
[email protected]
07765391152

A huge thank you to Andrew Hill, director of Notcutt who have agreed to sponsor my piece by providing a large amount of the Jesmonite products, that will cover the core structure (Jesmonite components, quadaxial fibreglass matting, pigments, sealer).

W P Notcutt have been specialising in the supply of materials to the mould-making and replication industries since 1950. They are experts in their  fields and one of the first in the industry.

I have been using them for a number of years now, and they have been wonderful with technical advice – and patience!!!

http://www.notcutt.co.uk

I went to see my sponsor yesterday, CNC Polystyrene, to see how they were getting on with the milling of my sculpture.

What do you want first, the good news or the bad news?

Good news is, half the figure is cut and it looks great!

Bad news is, the CNC cutter died while milling the second half and the robot repair men don’t want to come before Wednesday next week to mend the system. This is substantially going to delay the whole process, as the metal structure has to go in there as well. I’m loosing a week really.

Well, I just have to be extremely organised and hard working for the subsequent  steps.

Another good news: I found a second sponsor. The Company Notcutt, in Ripley, is so kind to provide a substantial part of the Jesmonite Products i’m going to use to put onto the base shape. I can’t wait to get there, I love that process. Thank you very much, Andrew!

Finishes.

While I’m waiting for my polystyrene to come I think about the next stages.

I have chosen the outer material to be Jesmonite, because it is water based and far less toxic then fibreglass. Because I can work it myself, and I enjoy the direct plaster approach, which allows me to add on, like in a modelling process. But also to take off, to work against a hard surface like stone or wood, once it has set off. Which means finding the form by shipping and filing away. This allows me to feel myself into the sculpture, to be completely emerged into the process which is always an incredible experience as it involves a transfer of energy!

I used plain white Jesmonite in my previous projects, but that doesn’t seem right for this outdoor project. Also I have to find a finish that will withstand all year weather conditions. So I’m in the process of producing lots of samples and try out different colours and finishes. Tomorrow I will pick up samples from the car body workshop. To see what car metallic paints look like on the material…

Hoping for the happy accident!

A two months production time, from a project on paper to 230 cm high outside sculpture, is agreeable a very short time. Fortunately, we can make use of modern technology to take a shortcut to the traditional process of creating a full size piece. After the scanning of the 45 cm model, a computer will enlarge the 3d scan and cut it out of polystyrene blocks. I will then insert a metal structure into the cut shapes and sandwich them together again.

The polystyrene shape will then be covered with quadaxial fibreglass matting and Jesmonite,  made up of two components, a liquid acrylic compound that binds a gypsum powder (not unlike that used for plaster casting). The resulting mixture acts much like plaster for 24 hours, then hardens to acrylic-like properties. This is a laborious act and will need lots of layers and filing/sanding back.

Here some pictures of the scan: