Plaster frieze designs

A couple of years ago I was commissioned to do a large public sculpture for a new shopping centre in Cardiff. I created four huge plaster friezes which were installed at high level in a circular atrium. As part of the commissioning process I had to present ideas for the sculpture and I did this by casting various motifs and then making Photoshop mock-ups. Coming across these initial designs after quite some time I realize there are ideas here I'd like to incorporate into my Architectiral Friezes Collection. The motifs I used related to large 19th century sculptural friezes at Cardiff City Hall - there are images of these at the end of the post.

To make the motifs I cast directly from real life objects, getting an indented, reverse image. Your eyes play tricks and it's sometimes hard to read the image the right way round so I've shown angle shots of the casts.


This was a cast from a paper plate and twisted fabric. It's a contemporary version of a roman platter in the original 19th century sculpture (see at bottom)

















I cast from real leaves (in a roundabout way) and plastic grapes




























Cast from real leather gloves










Cast from plastic fridge magnet fruit!








I think the book worked really well in reverse, giving a beautiful inverted 'spine'




Cast from real oak leaves







Cast from rope and real scissors






Some of the 19th century sculptures from which I took the imagery.






The final sculpture was more complex than these initial friezes and contained lots more imagery. I continued to cast from real life objects but had to use a special mould-making material to enlarge these to the correct scale.

To see my final sculpture follow the link: Cardiff commission
And for other frieze designs: Architectural Friezes