Project # 39 Franz West Sculptures

Franz West was an Austrian Artist.  He was born in Vienna in 1947 and died in 2012.  

West created a wide variety of work:  paintings, collage, sculpture,  papier mâché and some wearable sculpture and pieces that were meant be carried. These last group of sculptural pieces were called Passstücke or Adaptives. They were to be "activated" or used and touched.

West was very interested in psychology, play, movement and acting. He wanted his work to be playful and ambiguous.

Some of his sculptures are brightly colored, organic forms made out of papier mâché or gauze and plaster over forms or sometimes over objects, like the sculptures above and below.

You can create a small sculpture similar to these. There are several techniques you can choose from. There are two easy ways to create the form. Before making the form, make a base to put it on. You can used a block of wood or create a base with plaster and a wooden dowel.

After creating the base with a stand (dowel), make a form on top of it using old papers or plastic shopping bags. Tape around your form with masking to stabilize it. Make sure that it is anchored well to the stand and base.

Use one of the two following methods to finish your sculptural form.

Papier Mache

To make your sculpture more durable cover the basic form with paper mache, strips of newspaper dipped into glue and layered. Make at least three layers and let it dry (1 cup of Elmers glue + 3/4 cup water makes a very good papier mache glue).

OR

Plaster

Apply wet plaster over the taped form until the tape is covered. Let dry.

After your forms are dry, paint them with latex house paint, acrylic or tempera. You can dip into paint, brush the paint on, drip it on, splatter, etc...

Below are images showing the molding of the base and stand and using the plaster to cover the form. We used this plaster, Perfect Plaster Pottery and Ceramics. You can find small bags of plaster at craft and art supply stores and sometimes hardware stores.

Start with some plastic containers or used paper cups. Make sure to work on top of a drop cloth or paper to protect the surface you are working on.

The used paper cup below was filled a little above halfway with COLD water. Do not use warm water because it will activate the chemical process in the plaster and set up too quickly.

Slowly sift spoonfuls of plaster into the cup of water. You can wear gloves and use a dust mask to mix the plaster if you like (plaster made for crafts will not burn your skin but it will make your skin dry). Do not stir the plaster until you have filled the water with plaster and the plaster is saturated.

When you have filled the cup with enough plaster this is what it looks like.  There will be a small mound of plaster above the water.  The plaster will be wet.  At this point, you can stir the plaster and water until the mixture is smooth.  

When the plaster is mixed pour it into paper or plastic cups or other containers.  Place a dowel, wooden chopstick or skewer in the middle to act as the stand.  Tape around the dowel to hold it in place while the plaster is setting up.  This will take about 45 mins.

Once your base is hardened, you should be able to pop it out of the plastic container by putting pressure on the bottom of the container or cut it out.  Attach the form that you are creating to the dowel.  Make a small hole  in the bottom of the form if necessary so that that it sits on the dowel.  

Make another small cup of plaster for each form.  If you have any plaster left over you can make extra bases and stands for other projects.  Apply the wet plaster to the form with a plastic spoon.  Below the forms are almost covered.  

Let the plaster set and completely dry.  This might take 3 days.  

Paint the sculpture with any waterbased paint. We used acrylic and some latex.

Below is a dry sculptural form ready to be painted and after painting.