I set up a plastic bowl of warm water for the plaster cloth, and I cut the cloth into 6-inch strips 6 of these for the three bottles. I did all the layers in one session and let them dry for 24 hours this is enough time in my hot dry apartment - it’s currently wintertime and my fiancée has the heat blasting - but that might not be enough drying time under different circumstances, especially if the weather is humid. For the plaster wrap I’d do tests with 1 layer, 2 layers, and 3 layers.Īpplying the paper maché to the bottles was easy I could do this stuff in my sleep! You can read about my paper maché process and materials here he short version is: I use Roman PRO-543 universal wallpaper adhesive (paid link) and alternating layers of newspaper and brown wrapping paper. For the paper maché I’d do tests with 4 layers, 7 layers, and 10 layers. So, for this experiment I decided on setting up six wine bottles - three for paper maché and three for the plaster wrap. If I can use this stuff for future masks, I wondered: how much work time and drying time could I save? I’d read that plaster cloth dries much faster, so that was an attractive idea, and I wondered if it would require fewer layers because it’s much thicker than paper. I often do two layers in a row and then let them dry for 12-24 hours (depending on the weather and humidity) before continuing. Each layer of paper maché on a big mask usually takes me between one and two hours. Some background: For my paper maché masks, I usually do at least seven layers of paper, and on decorations with a shorter lifespan I often use about three to five layers. I know from lots of previous projects that this kind of tape works well as a release agent for paper maché, but I didn’t know if it would work well for the plaster cloth.

My hope was that the test pieces would be fairly easy to lift off of the tape. I then covered the white paper completely in strips of clear shipping tape. I also labeled the bottles with “PM” for paper maché and “PoP” for plaster of paris, and I noted how many layers I would be doing for each. I then used a marker to draw a large rectangle on each one this would be my target area to cover, so all the finished pieces would be pretty much the same shape and size. I prepared the bottles by doing the following: First, I wrapped a piece of white paper onto each bottle, and taped it in place. Making multiple copies of something curved would mean I could try various stress tests on them and see how these materials would hold up in an actual mask or sculpture more on that coming up. I wanted something curved, because curved shapes are always stronger than flat shapes. I decided to use wine bottles as the base for the shapes I’d be creating for this experiment. Consider the cost differences for a project made with one material or the other Shape.Compare the look and texture of the finished pieces.Compare the weight of the finished pieces.

Compare the strength of the finished pieces.Compare various amounts of layers of paper maché and layers of plaster wrap.Conduct a test involving multiple copies of a curved shape.Here are the things I wanted to try for this test:

Versus stucco