Tarmac- BOWL

As part of my third experiment with getting cold-lay asphalt tarmac to set and become a manipulatable tool for sculpture I decided to mix it into the resin, followed by catalyst. Sticking with the theme of fluid shapes, I attempted to prepare a dome shape using a bowl and mod rock. I started off using 200g of general purpose resin mixed with black pigment. However as this was my first batch I did not get the measurements right- I should have completely saturated the resin with the asphalt. Even when it looks just like rocks coated in resin, its still not enough. If there is too much resin than tarmac then pools of it will collect on the surface- revealing its trickery. I added double the amount of catalyst to the batch as I wasn't too sure wether this sloppy mixture would ever set (considering tarmac is made up of small rocks and this gloopy tar).

OH NO!

Instantly I knew this was a tragic mess. The mixture was way to sloppy and kept sliding down the sides of the bowl. My plan was a little stupid looking back on it- I should have poured the mixture inside the bowl rather than the outside as it was a bit tricky to remove the bowl after as well and wasn't a smooth inside because of the change of texture over the mod rock.

In an emergency situation where a lot of black, sticky mess was created I used lino to try and keep the tarmac in shape in hope that it will set.

A day layer and it did actually set! despite being considerably deformed and far from a perfect dome. The lino doesn't fit the shape of the lino so a lot of the tarmac sunk down to the bottom and also meant that in places the bowl was still exposed. I added 2 others layers to this and tried patting it down or hitting it around the sides to try and create a completely smooth surface. I didn't mind the texture of the surface either, although it was shinier than if it was just tarmac, it didn't look too glossy or glazed. This was quite interesting because although you can tell it is tarmac, it does look slightly different and has an intense smell of resin (almost too intense in an enclosed space).