Plasticine Modelling

Background

As a Colombian, one grows up immersed in a culture of caricature and plasticine artworks. This material is not only used as a tool or activity for small children, but also very commonly as a material for stop motion animations in educational TV programmes or for creating scenes to criticise the social inequalities with which Colombians are confronted every day.

Its widespread availability and accessibility make this material beloved by the vast majority of the population. It was therefore a very normal material for me to work with as a child. Over the years, I’ve grown to see this material as a powerful tool to connect people and to try to integrate my community, in order to learn how to work in harmony towards our common goals.

Plasticine helps people in two different aspects. The first is the development of fine motor skills and coordination, a sense of proportion, sensitivity etc. On top of that, it can help to build your confidence, trust in others (especially when you work with someone) and if you work with someone else, it can greatly improve your social skills in general (teamwork, problem-solving abilities, patience, endurance etc). As a matter of fact, it has been broadly shown that working with plasticine helps people to understand and get closer to each other.

Having fun with this material is completely guaranteed because it does not require one to have any experience with it at all. The great variety of techniques that one can develop will allow any person to create fantastic works of art with their own personal touch (which I think is the most important factor to take into account when one decides to enter the artistic world).

Types of work with plasticine

3D Figures

One of the most common examples of works made with plasticine. You create a figure from top to bottom and then create the background for the figure you are making.

Flat spreading with some textures and pointillist technique

Here one can mix three different plasticine techniques (spreading, pointillism and some parts with texture).

Flat spreading with a lot of texture

In this one the most important thing is making different layers of the image you want to recreate. You can decide which area will be brought out through a very prominent texture.

Other themes to create

Usually, we think that plasticine is only interesting when one tries to recreate a well-known figure or caricature. However, this material has many more possibilities to offer us. For example:

Art works

Nature

I hope you have had fun reading about plasticine and looking at my recent works. Finally, I will leave you with more things that I have been doing recently. More to come soon!

Types of work with plasticine

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I hope you have had fun reading about plasticine and looking at my recent works. Finally, I will leave you with more things that I have been doing recently. More to come soon!