During todays mixed materials session, we looked at the plastic worbla, it appears as a brown sheet which when heated with a heat gun, becomes a mouldable substance almost like play-dough. I really enjoyed working with this material as the options you can make with it are limitless. However one down-side of working with this material is how hot it is to touch when first heated with the gun and therefore you have to work quickly before it sets again. Similarly this material can not be left in the sun or under hot lights as it is extremely heat sensitive and will melt.
We were allowed to fully experiment individually trying different moulding and modelling techniques such as bending, stretching, rolling etc. I decided to make a tiara/crown shape adding leaf and floral embellishments the design almost reminds me of something from a whimsical woodland scene. I lastly added the swirl features, embedding beads to resemble jewells to act as a contrast from the rest of the tiara/crown. To make sure the crown was to scale, I heated it and then placed it onto the glass head adding another strip of worbla behind to make it look like a real crown. However the piece of plastic towards the end began to warp after being reheated and stretched so many times as I wanted to make sure it was the perfect shape. This is something I need to take note of for next time. To add the embellishments onto the surface of the tiara/ crown you heat both urfaces and press them onto one another. This allows the plastic to melt and mould into one another creating a smooth and slick polish.
Another consideration when working with this material is the weight of it and therefore it is most feasible working with smaller items/props, similarly on a large scale it can be costly. However I am considering working in this material for my final artefact as it is my favourite plastic to work in so far out of the materials we have trialled.
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