Creating Your Own Push Molds

As you know I am mainly a fine artist and the mere mention of molds makes me think of patterns, stencils, and other things not created by oneself. But when our teacher Kathy mentioned using found objects to push into clay to make your own molds, she had my attention. If I can make it or design it myself then I am fine. These were projects one group was making using push molds made with a variety of texture mats and objects. As long as an object has a very high relief, and is fairly firm you can use it for a push mold. Just push it down into a piece of clay, bisque fire the piece and next time you are ready to make a mold of you own design. I have one art piece that I made my own molds for using real cowboy boots. Instead of clay I pushed them into plaster of Paris I had poured into a wooden box frame. Then I made a reverse mold. I put the boots in a raku firing and mounted them on an old rusted ironing board. The piece was called line dancing, it came out very well.