“What Plaster Do You Use?”
It’s a question I'm asked at least a couple times every week, and while I really don't mind, it is quite a difficult question to answer. Plaster is not an easy medium to use for artwork, and it is especially difficult to master. It cracks, it peels, it crumbles. It can be too soft, too hard, too dry, too wet.
Let's face it, plaster is not designed to be used for artwork. When I first started using it for my texture work 12 years ago, there was absolutely no information anywhere about how to use it for art purposes, only sculptures. I had no idea which plaster was best, how long it would last or how to stop it cracking and crumbling and breaking off the canvas. There was no one to ask as there wasn't anyone I could find working with the medium as I was. There were no handy Youtubers or Tiktokers doing ‘How To’ videos, in fact no matter how much I searched, all I found was demonstrations on how to plaster walls. While this was interesting on a basic level to give me an understanding of how plaster worked, it really didn’t answer any of my questions about how I could create thick, textured layers that wouldn’t crack. I would have to learn the hard way. I experimented. Over and over and over. I tried different types of plasters, I tried different surfaces, and different additives, I mixed these combinations and recorded the effects. Which gave me a stronger plaster? Which gave me a more flexible plaster? Which mixture worked best on a wood panel in thick layers?
I did some crying and screaming when nothing would work but I was determined because the textures I could create with it were perfect to me. So I persevered. Eventually I found a mix that worked for me, and my method evolved alongside it, as well as the surfaces I was working on which led me develop creating my own cradled boards (I’ll be doing a how to on those soon, they’re a lot simpler than you think!). I got to a point that I understood my medium so well that as soon as any issues developed, I knew exactly how to solve them. I don’t need to look up a recipe card to alter the plaster mix for ‘rainy cold days’, I know instinctively every aspect that needs to change and adjust accordingly. This is because I know the purpose of each additive that has gone into the plaster mix I developed, because I know each step of the method I have learned to get the best finish from the drying plaster. I learned all of this from those years of experiments, from the broken pieces, and the crying and screaming and wanting to quit.
This took YEARS, and I don’t mean just to find a plaster to use, but to learn to work with and shape it to the level I now can. In essence I was relearning my painting and drawing skills as creating forms in plaster is completely different. At times it was awful but I kept going, and now the trade off is that now there is very few things I can't create with plaster, because I know it to an intricate, intimate level. This is my medium, I know it, I have mastered it, and I love working with it. Nothing worth having comes easily, there aren't ways to skip to the end or cheat the system, but I promise the rewards are really worth it. This is why answering the question “what plaster do you use?” is not an easy one. There is no simple answer to it. For although I could tell you the exact mix I use, it would only work for you one in every five or so occasions and you wouldn’t understand why. You would be frustrated with me and think I had cheated you, when I hadn’t, in fact it had just been a hot day and you didn’t adjust for that, because you didn’t know.
Which is why, now when I’m asked, I tell you that I use Gypsum plaster. Gypsum makes up 95% of my mix as it does most plasters, and the adventure and learning you go on to discover your own 5% is well worth the journey.
