Plaster Tile

Using a clean sheet of clear plastic, I created square walls of clay using scrap terracotta. These walls weren’t precise, but needed to be completely watertight so I spent some time ensuring there were no gaps from the inside out. This was so the wet plaster would leak out. Using a bowl, a little water and a shovel, I slowly poured the plaster powder into the bowl until it was beginning to form islands of powder. At this point I used my hand to mix it all together. Looking back, I probably should have used a spoon or something similar due to the health hazards this presented. Once mixed, the plaster was poured into the walls to set. You could determine if the plaster was dry or not by looking to see if there was any water on the top. If there was, it needed some more time. When there wasn’t, I was able to peel the clay walls away carefully and flip over the tile to produce a completely flat and clean side to work on. Using a pencil I drew on a design of the human form, gradually drawing into it harder and harder to leave an engraving in the surface. Once completely dry, I shall use this tile to print into the surface of a wet clay tile to produce an exact print of this design.