Chocolate cast

Originally I was going to cast in chocolate but was unable to because my mold did not work. However I did experiment with it. I must admit I prefered the results with the plaster cast but I think had I been able to make another gel flex mold of the larger barbie and then cast that in chocolate I would have really liked to have submitted that as my final piece.

Because Barbie's waist it so small, it is really fragile and unstable when being taken out of the mold so it kept breaking which was frustrating. I think for the smaller pieces it looked quite effective however, and added to the distorted effect.

Green Cast

For one of my testers I cast a barbie out of gel-flex and then added plater cast to it to distort its shape, I then spray painted it green to add a sense of the obscene and un-natural to the body. I didn't do the final piece green because I felt it would have been to big to get away with that and would look ridiculous.

I also put a nail file by the piece to give the impression it was cut by this, I though a nail file was more relevant than a knife because it is a pampering tool used by a woman, which could be a sign of weakness and self destruction.

Final Pieces

Because of the problems with my cast I had to change the way i did my final piece. However, it did not matter as the means to the end were the same. I deliberately chose to put the body of the barbie black, not only to stand out but also as it would add to the "distorted" image of the barbie. I felt the black would make it less about the head and more about the body, and ridicule the typical barbie doll that has existed for years.

I used newspaper clippings to create the word "Beauty" with a question mark. A question of society, image and mass media. I used newsprint as it is a recognised image and to make it slightly more impersonal. I wanted it to be an idea, but not an apathetic one, just simply a point that could exist.

For the background I used a print of the word distortion that was back to front and upside down and also printed lightly so that it was also "distorted".

Things I would Improve

If I got to do this project again there is lots I would change. First of all I would hopefully get to spend longer on it, because I was particularly passionate about my chosen subject but really became frustrated by not being able to get as involved in it as I would have liked to have due to not having enough time. This is not because I have not worked hard enough, on average I have worked well past 9-5 every day for the past three weeks because I have had such a sheer work load for this and my other subject.

I also would obviously have redone my gel flex mold which went horribly wrong!! I would then have cast it in plaster and built on it in plaster bandage to get a similar effect I did with my final piece. I then would have made another gel flex mold for it and cast that bigger one in chocolate, I think this would have shown my development much more successfully then I did now.

Ellie

Things go from Bad to Worse

After my mold just failed miserably (very upset bout that) I had to improvise my final pieces. Luckily the idea I had was not limited to one way of doing it. Instead I used the cast from the mold as one side was ok and built up on it with plaster bandage to show the theme of my project which was distortion. I also built up on the body of a barbie using plaster bandage to make her fat. I want to print the words beauty onto her adaquate size waist, but all the printers in the university computer rooms were down "due to technical fault" from wednesday, which was excellent!

Also I tried to do a chocolate one, but it snapped in half!! Things just do not go the way I want to, I think I would have been ok if we'd have had longer but as it was, I really struggled to get painting, print, sculpture and exam preperation as well as 3000 words for creative writing done in the past two weeks. I also came in to do an alginate mold last week but there was no alginate so I had to do print as I hadn't got my barbies at that point, therefore I have just been unable to complete that and will have hand in the mold or hand of mine and Cat's piece. :(

Fat Barbie

As Barbie is such a cult image, and so well known, she is the perfect example to make a point about both obesity and anarexia, hence the adverts.

Fat Barbie Dolls

A fat barbie in an artistic pose.