concrete drawing test panel part 1

so before we begin on the large concrete drawings, we are making a test tile. 

the large final artworks are set up and ready to go, but will be kept under cover for a few weeks until we are ready to go with them.

 

we have our foam test template cut out and positioned on the concrete casting slab.

 we secure it in place with some liquid nails and weight it down with some bricks.

next using a recipe similar to baking a cake we mix sand, cement, aggregate and oxides to make a blue concrete mixture.

above is john the person working with deb and i on this project and the person on the team with concreting experience

 

we carefully place the concrete in the area of the image that will be blue and tap it in place to release all the air bubbles.

 

we fill the whole section with the blue, in and around the foam template.

 

then we begin our next colour mix, this time it is more of a teal blue-green.

 

again we carefully place this in the foam template and tap the air bubbles out. (look mom its me doing some work!)

when that teal green colour is in place we begin the last mix of the morning, a dark blue.

it really does remind me of when i made the layered rainbow cake.

we then fill in the mold with the dark blue colour and then cover the whole test tile to let the concrete set up over the next couple days.

this is deb standing with charlie. he is the man who owns the building we are working in. it used to be a thumping concrete and terrazzo and stone cutting factory with 150 employees, but now it is just charlie who is 80 years old who comes to work and now he gets to watch us novices try and make some artwork. he is good to have around, lets us know when we are doing something wrong, and gives us tips. its like doing a very informal apprenticeship.