Experimenting With Materials

Experimenting with foods

Following my experiments with sand, and still following the idea o using materials similar in physicality with the pottery plaster that didn't set, I decided to experiment with cereals, knowing that when left to absorb moisture, they would go soggy, and would later set and go hard. I was most interested in working ith the material at the stage where it absorbed the moisture I would apply to it.

The cereal I chose to use was Rice Krispies, knowing that when soggy, the cereal retained its shape. I used a small amount of water and ink for colour and mixed them together until the liquids were absorbed.
As well as being soggy, the cereal was also sticky, and would retain its shape when pushed into forms, making it perfect for moulding with

The first thing I did with the cereal was make a ball, simply to see if the cereal would hold together after a length of time or, like the sand from the previous experiment, fall to pieces once dry. I encased it in plaster so that if the shape were to crumble, there would be a visible trace of where it had previously been.

I left the cereal for around a week after this, and when I came back to it, it was covered in a thin layer of green mould. The ink had also began to spread through the plaster.
Unfortunately, because of health and safety, I had to throw the experiment in case anything were to happen because of the spores that could possibly be released from the mould.

For my next experiment, I decided to use a mixture of water mixed with sugar. This mixture would be extremely sticky, and I had the hopes that it could be used as a glue. 

I had first tested it on scrim to see what would happen if it were applied to a flexible surface.

I had believed that the mixture would take a while to set, and as the day went on my suspicions grew. There had been no visible change to the appearance of the experiment. It still looked as glossy and wet as when I first applied it, but when I went to touch it, the sugar and water mixture had gone solid, and had formed a thick crust over the scrim.

At this point, I found myself lacking for ideas, and had begun experimenting with the pottery plaster again. Because I had finally figured out how to get it to set solid, I had started to move back to my comfort zone. I had also started picking up found objects once again because of my lack of ideas, and had started combining the two together. Realising this, I decided to add in some of the new materials I had been experimenting with. 

At first, I had considered painting the entire experiment in one block colour except for the found object, in this case the glasses, but instead decided to combine ink with the sugar water mix I had been experimenting with, and pour it over the top, knowing that the red pigments would transfer into the plaster from the ink.

Once dry, the sugar frmed a crust similar to that as on the scrim, but because the surface was uneven and more textured, the sugar had began to flack off in places, and had stuck in others.

The colour had faded a whole lot since I had applied the mixture to the plaster, but the way the pigment had spread from where it had initially been was interesting.