Hand Casting While Holding an Object

Figure 1

Hands make an extraordinary life casting gift because of their texture and expressiveness. They are also one of the simplest life casting sculptures to produce in terms of size, preparation time, modeling ease, use of material and space needed to create the mold and casting. In this example, we have chosen to cast a hand while holding an object. This gives special relevance to the sculpture and to the owner of the hand especially if their interest is the sport related to the object they are holding such as a lacrosse ball, a badminton bird, tennis ball, hockey puck, softball and so on. We will take you go step-by-step through the molding and casting process to make certain it is clear. We have selected this slightly advanced hand cast instruction, because the most basic of hand casting, is done without holding anything, yet it follows the same procedure, sans the object held. So we provide two lessons in one set of instructions.

Figure 2

The process begins with a conatiner large enough for your hand and the object it will hold. You will need 1-pound of MoldGel Regular Set SILFREE alginate for the project.

Figure 3

The mold container is filled with water up to the top of container. A pose is then taken. Here we decided to cast a hand holding a PC mouse. Whatever the hand can hold may be cast. But it is important to practice the pose first as you want it centered in the container without touching the bottom.

Figure 4

The one pound package of MoldGel is sprinkled in the container. Always add powder to the water or lumps will develop that are hard to remove with stirring.

Figure 5

A wire kitchen whisk is used for stirring. This reduces the amount of air incorporated into the mix that can develop using a stick or spoon. Air creates air bubbles that can mar your mold.

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