What has been happening?
It has been a while since the last time I posted something about this project. Apart from being busy with work and my own education, my approach to this project has been to take it one step at…
First out of twenty
In July I signed up to a course at Dutch Molds to start with the first steps towards making complex plaster molds. Piet van der Sluis is the owner of Dutch Molds in Amsterdam. He has been making…
Exploring plaster mold-making
In the past few weeks I continued with my quest to search for production alternatives of plaster molds to make the kissing couples in The Netherlands. The purpose is to reduce initial production costs as much as possible.…
3D thinking
As we all know 3D printing has been growing and progressing in leaps and bounds in the past years. I was curious to find if it would be an option to 3D print this souvenir in porcelain at…
The efforts it costs to get a cost price
Next to exploring stories about cultural similarities or differences in the multicultural Holland, finding out about the design - and the production process for it - has been challenging. One of the main purposes of this project is…
From mold to final model
This project has its own pace and a mindful decision making process. Many proposals and ideas for the ‘making of ’ possibilities have agitated my creative mind up to the point of wanting to make this pieces of…
China: Work in progress
I have been working on the Chinese female. The shape is almost ready and I have started to create the Chinese male so I will have the first couple ready soon. I will combine this process with a…
Discovering Form
It is time to start the design production of the larger pieces. The new models of the couples will be 35 cms high. This is a size that works well for me and easy transport too. I am…
Samples are ready
During the past few weeks, I’ve invested quite some hours in detailing, sanding and painting and looking at images of the folkloric garments from each of the countries. I don’t have any knowledge about the technique to paint…
Kiss
Next to the production of models, I’ve been doing research for the content of the project, learning a bit about Immigration History in the Netherlands and facts and figures about its present population. I am also discovering many…
Waiting list
At this point I’ve had a line of potential clay figurines waiting for me to give them form and color. I’ve put them in a zip-lock bag so that they keep their moisture. I lined them up on…
Shrink gracefully…
Still working on the model making process; as I previously mentioned, the modeling clay I’ve used shrinks when it dries. For design purposes it is important to have some control that both pieces (male and female) shrink proportionately,…
Hands-on, new rough sketches.
Making the first models was good to gain experience on how to work with modeling clay (the one that hardens up). This clay is not so user friendly, it shrinks while it dries and this leaves a rough…
First Steps, materializing ideas.
This is how it all started, the first sketch model inspired in a female Turkish folkloric dress. I transferred this idea into modeling clay and as a next step a mold was made by Montagne Aardenwerkfabriek to slip…