08 December,2016 08:53 AM IST | | Shraddha Uchil
Use your imagination and create fantastical mini worlds at a plaster diorama workshop next weekend
Emily Hunt
OBSESSED with the Harry Potter series? What if you could create a miniature replica of the towering Hogwarts Castle? What about a dinosaur-filled scene from Jurassic Park? You can do this and more once you attend a plaster diorama workshop at Space 118 next weekend.
Emily Hunt's diorama creations
The diorama, which is simply a three-dimensional model of a realistic scene, was first created in the 1820s by Louis Daguerre (of daguerreotype photography fame). Dioramas are often used in museum exhibits to display wildlife in natural habitats, historic events, landscapes, or simply scenes of everyday life.Emily Hunt, a Sydney-based artist, will be flying down to Mumbai to conduct the workshop. "Another artist who'd held a workshop at the space in the past directed her to us. She is very excited to be doing this," says Saloni Doshi, director of Space 118.
She adds, "It's interesting because we've never had a workshop on plaster dioramas before. In fact, we hardly ever end up hosting sculpture-related workshops. The closest we came to it was with the pottery sessions."
Hunt will begin the class by showing participants her works as well as those of other artists in the field. She will then proceed to demonstrate how plaster must be fixed to achieve the right consistency. The class will then be taught to construct an architectural form using Styrofoam and newspaper.
This will be followed by the draping of plaster on the form. The plaster sets very quickly, during which time the participants will be mixing colours with water to paint a vivid landscape on the diorama. Once the paint is dry, participants can start adding the little details that make the diorama more life-like - glue, grass, people, and other found objects.
