#modroc

[lord-lucanis]

My Creature takes shape...

A skeleton of wire, yet he craves a skin!

My horrid boy lives!

More on his progress later

[the-great-kraken]

three hours into my art exam and an hour behind. the adrenaline kicked in half an hour ago and now im just about ready to fight god.

[purplefayeuk]

From Photos to Finished Artwork: Showing how Purple-Loving Knottingley Artist Purple Faye Brought Dogs Champ and Treacle Together in One Original 3D Acrylic Painting Pet Portrait

In this blog post, you’ll see how purple-loving Knottingley artist Purple Faye brought dogs Champ and Treacle together in one original 3D acrylic painting pet portrait using photographs to work from and received this feedback for the work. This was a special one to work on as sadly Treacle, the teeny tiny teacup Chihuahua, had passed away before the customer had rescued Champ (a mix of lots of…

[thatkidwholikesthunderbirds]

I'm really sorry for the delay on those requests guys, I've been super busy with college. Last week was work experience and this week I need to finish off our second project of the year and I've been fighting sewing machines and printers and this fucking modeling material called modroc.

Hectic Squiddo hours rn I'm afraid. (; – –)

[onewhale]

Haaland: you are so good

Modroc : I know *smile*

*See Gvardiol

Modric : hey you ಠ_ಠ

Gvardiol：💦

[enyanolanart]

Modroc/cardboard/glass

June, 2025

[processandproductionkasey]

Evaluation

For my Process and Production project, I initially focused on the theme of exclusion among women through the lens of feminist theory. However, as I began to delve into this topic, I found myself uninspired and uncertain about how to proceed. It quickly became apparent that I needed a new direction. This led me to explore the emotional spectrum associated with colour and its relationship with postmodernism. The moment I changed themes, a flood of ideas and concepts emerged, confirming that I had made the right choice. In this project, I aimed to utilise balloons in innovative ways. Having worked with them in the past, I felt there was potential to explore different avenues. I wanted this project to visually contrast with my Creative Project, which had a dark and moody aesthetic; instead, I envisioned something bright and colourful, characterised by chaotic brush marks. I made a conscious decision not to engage in workshops, as I wanted the focus to remain on mark-making throughout the process. Reflecting on future possibilities, I would consider experimenting with paper vessels and gold foil. I believe these materials could effectively symbolise various concepts I wish to convey. Portraiture was never an option for this project; I intended to draw attention to markmaking and texture instead. During my development phase, I experimented with Styrofoam balls alongside Modroc, spray paint, and my airbrush. Although I appreciated these pieces individually, they did not resonate with me as a cohesive outcome. Ultimately, I am thrilled with how my final project turned out, even though it diverged from my original composition. The initial concept I had in mind did not translate as I had envisioned. However, I quickly adapted and created a new final piece that I believe successfully captures my intentions. The use of a plinth in my presentation enhanced the paintings, allowing them to take on the shape of the plinth itself. This transformation was vital, as it helped shift the works from a two-dimensional representation to a more three-dimensional experience. Overall, I am very satisfied with this project. It allowed me to explore all the ideas and concepts I had throughout the process, providing clarity on what worked and what didn’t. The vibrant colours, varied textures, and innovative use of materials came together to create a visually striking and meaningful body of work. This project not only reflects my artistic evolution but also highlights the importance of flexibility and adaptability in the creative process. I learned to embrace unexpected changes and find inspiration in new directions, which ultimately led to a more fulfilling and engaging final result. As I move forward, I am excited to apply these insights and continue exploring the rich interplay between colour, emotion, and form in my future projects

[creativepracticejodierundell]

Personal Project Evaluation

This project has been one of the most immersive and personally meaningful experiences I’ve undertaken. It began with fragmented dreams, subconscious recordings, and half-formed images, and evolved into a physical, immersive space that brings all of those ephemeral thoughts to life. Inspired by the surreal and psychological landscapes of artists like Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, and Yayoi Kusama, I wanted to create a world that existed beyond logic but one rooted in emotion, symbolism, and memory.

Dalí’s distortion of time and space encouraged me to embrace the irrational, while Magritte’s use of symbolic familiarity helped me understand how meaning can be embedded in the simplest forms. Kusama’s immersive, obsessive environments inspired me to think about how space can become part of the artwork itself like how a viewer can be enveloped in a world, not just observe it.

Appropriation played a key role throughout the development of this work. I borrowed visual language from Neanderthal and Paleolithic cave art like handprints, animal forms, and spiral symbols, not to imitate them, but to echo their purpose. These ancient marks weren’t decorative; they were attempts to express the unseen, the remembered, the feared. In using and recontextualising this imagery, I aimed to connect personal dreaming to a much older human impulse and to leave traces of inner life on physical surfaces. These marks, while borrowed, are layered with my own narratives, allowing them to function as both homage and reinterpretation.

A pivotal aspect of the project was the act of recording myself sleep-talking. This was raw and vulnerable sometimes confronting to hear, but it revealed a voice I didn’t know I had. Some of the absurd phrases and dream imagery from those recordings were directly embedded into my work, especially my poetry and sound elements. The poem I created from this material plays on loop inside the final cave space, contributing to a sense of immersive disorientation and fragmented, like the dreams themselves.

I faced personal challenges during the process, but those emotional tensions helped deepen the work. Instead of choosing one final polished piece, I decided it was more appropriate to create a whole environment. The cave installation allowed my paintings, poetry, sound recordings, and sculptural elements to co-exist. This felt truer to the subject: dreams aren’t isolated as they bleed, layer, and loop. Creating the cave wasn’t just about displaying work; it was about inhabiting it.

Everything from the sculpted Modroc walls to the water-like lighting and suspended stalactites was rooted in memory. The animals, the spider, the langoustine they all emerged from personal dreams. The spiral symbols, handprints, and cave-like surface textures are all acts of appropriation recontextualised through a deeply individual lens. They tie the present to the past like my subconscious to ancient expression.

Ultimately, this work is about creating space for the subconscious to live outside the body. It became a way for all aspects of my practice the visual, written, sculptural; and all versions of myself from awake, dreaming, remembering to converge. Through appropriation, transformation, and immersion, I’ve built a space that honours both the personal and the universal impulse to make the unseen visible.

[millywoodfineart]

Prep Two, Medium-Oil paint, puppet and the puppeteer.​

Prep Three, Medium-Acrylic paint mixed with PVA and Modroc, the changing of control, over to anxiety, succumbing.​

[creativeenquirypiotrgacmenga]

10/30 Leg Casts & Other Discarded Ideas

My leg casts were difficult to do. he cast lost lots of its stability when cut off my leg and it has been hard to regain it. After throwing some plaster on it, it regained solidity. I originally intended to reuse my leg moulds, making each cast more unrecognisable than the last, but found they just fell apart way too easily.

I found it really interesting how in touch with my body I was while creating this. The process was difficult and required a bit of athleticism to add modroc to some parts on the back of my leg without looking and having to hold my leg up for 20 minutes. Despite this, there was something cathartic about it and I felt in tuned with myself. Taking off the cast, I had to cut it open and even this was an interesting experience. There was a tenseness as I had to be careful not to cut into my skin. When fixing the mould, I felt like I was fixing a part of myself weirdly.

The second cast was much sturdier and easier to take off, as I only did one side of the leg. The second half was to be built up with wire but once again, the wire structure was way too bulky.

Here, I used alginate to create a cast of my foot, This was unsettling, and the texture of the box this was done in remains on the base of the foot. Attached to the wall, the work is removed from its natural context, inducing more uncanny sensations.

Ultimately I never took my leg casts further, I wanted to focus on the hand, as I felt it in itself was an evocative object, and deserved to be treated separately.

I began to explore new methods around this time, mainly substituting concrete for plaster in my casts as there was plenty in the studio. One of my experiments was with post crete. This was a terrible result as the modrock mould couldn't hold the volume of water and post crete, resulting in this:

I was also experimenting with using silicon as a moulding material, but quickly found it wasn't effective as the moulds took too long to dry and became too sticky when demoulding, resulting in folded up moulds. This could be helped by using more silicon but would require a lot more time. The moulds were also very difficult to secure, resulting in contraptions like this…

[divergentproject23hons]

Reflective account of my project

Intention of practice:

The intenation of my work was to convey the idea of shadow figures and in do so evoke uncertainty and discomfort within the viewer. I aimed to achieve this by creating my own scary, uncanny and eerie shadow figures. I found that to achieve the scary atmosphere within my work, I had to make aspects dark in lighting when taking photos, arranging the figure in strange and peculiar ways. This combined with human like faces or no face and features at all created an uncanny appearance for my work.

Materials used:

Throughout this project I utilised found objects such as; tights, stuffing, needle and thread, sand, back cheese cloth, modroc, plaster, paint, twine, and thin black linen in order to creat my shadow figures and uncanny masks.

How my concept was conveyed:

I found that to achieve the scary atmosphere within my work, I had to make aspects dark in lighting when taking photos, arranging the figure in strange and peculiar ways. This combined with human like faces or no face and features at all created an uncanny appearance for my work. For my final installation I will enhance the sinister atmosphere created by my work, by including projection, sound as well as suspending my work within a dark and enclosed structure. The darkness as well as the immersive experience of the projection and sound will hopefully cause the hairs on the back of the viewers neck to stand up as chills brush over them. The darkness within my install will almost bring my figures to life and make them more uncanny.

Artists and theory research influences:

Throughout my project I have undertaken a substantial amount of research in order to fuel my ideas. For the production of my uncanny masks I was inspired by Marnie Weber, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, and Gabriela Fridriksdottir. I also researched into the history of horror masks in cinema which was very informative and inspired some of my masks. For my shadow figures I was inspired by Louise Bourgeois, Sarah Lucas, Mire Lee, Tim Burton movie imagery (hooded figure near staircase), and Joseph Beuys. I researched into the works of Sue de Beer as well as sound art to influence my digital work of projecting video and sound. For the displaying of my work I was inspired by Cornelia Parker to suspend my work. Throughout this project I have research the theory of the uncanny valley, support surfaces, sound art, ready made art, the found object, the gothic and uncanny atmosphere within Tim Burton movies, the phenomenon of shadow people as well as Sigmund Freud’s theory on dreams.

How I planned and maintained organisation throughout the duration of this project:

I kept a weekly plan of everything I intended to do each week. This assured that I done everything that had to be done. By making a weekly plan this allowed me to stay organised and kept me on track, therefore limiting my stress.

Strengths and weaknesses:

Throughout this project I have come face to face with many challenges that I had to overcome, therefore strengthening my practice and giving me confidence as a young artist. So far my strengths have been photography and successfully making my shadow figures. I done very well to follow through on my ideas in order to convey my concept. I put a lot of thought and planning into each artwork that I made and had to problem solve and plan in advance to prepare for my installation. I have undertaken lots of research in order to gain inspiration and to fuel my ideas for my concept, I have kept on track and done all the research I intended to do. Therefore my strengths have been my motivation, determination and execution of my ideas.

What this project has done for my practice:

Overall, this project has pushed me out of my comfort zone and I have worked in ways I never thought I would. Some of the materials used and ways of working have never been a part of my practice. Hanging solutions and the build of this installation is also a way of working that is entirely new to me. I have worked with eerie and unsettling concepts before, however I have never created work conveying the phenomenon of shadow figures. I enjoyed this project and it has strengthened my abilities as an artist and has given me confidence for future works and ideas. This project has posed many problems that I had to overcome and solve. I am happy with what I have achieved with this project as it has taken my practice to a level I did not think I could reach and has therefore given me so much confidence as a young artists.

What would I have done differently?:

I would have liked to have spent more time in the photography studio with my other figures, as well as producing more video and sound.

[evolutionandunpredictability1]

These are larger 3D experiments using a range of techniques.

My favourite is the modroc piece at the bottom because of why I made it. When putting it together, I let myself totally concentrate on my feelings and emotions. I embodied my anger, doubt, sadness, and everything I didn't want to feel or think about. In doing that, I created a ball of feeling with sharp edges, hidden crevices, and a ruff, raw exterior.

I created a similar one for my 3D final and I call it an emotional blob. The other was not spikey and mad enough. I wanted it to be a sharp, angry, confused looking sculpture. The modroc gave a great effect of leaving it looking unloved, unfinished and like the skin has just been peeled of it. I think this give a great effect of showing the unstable and erratic nature of grief.

The others were purely experimental. The wolf head was because I wanted to make the danger touchable and tangible which is how it feels sometimes. But I didn't like it because it was just a wolf head and not a good representation of what I felt.

The bone China piece was a great success, I thought, because it held together really well and created some kinda of dome. I wish that I had experimented more with it because the fragility of the material mirrored the fragile state that people are in when going through grief.

[piotrgacreativenquiry]

Been working with wire as a found material trying to shape half of my leg using the material. I’ve found this hard as while being pliable, the wire doesn’t want to shape itself into the contours it needs to successfully shape the calf. It’s also been a struggle to attach the wire to the modroc which has been achieved through perseverance and patching plaster.

[dpwritten23]

How does this research link to my work:

I will be creating my own masks that resemble human form, however are questioned due to their ambiguity. I will not use bread dough, but instead I will use plaster and modroc. They will be suspended within a dark setting surrounded by other works that accommodate the hanging faces. Much like Fridriksdottir’s piece on the right, where a woman sits wearing a mask, surrounded by other objects that evoke questions within the viewer.

[nickolasfischerportfolio1]

1st picture: Close up detail. Placed on a brass chair is a knife and a bowl of severed ears. Sometimes the persistent tinnitus leads one to think of dark remedies.

2nd picture: Front on view of "Memory in a matchbox" constructed from: wood, found objects, clay, Bolsa wood, modroc.

[enyanolanart]

Ran out of modroc but had wall plaster in the shed so made it work. Progress!

Wip, June 2025