The process of melting layers of plastic

I decided to experiment with seeing the effect of building upon layers of melted plastic to see what the texture looked like, As I found that texture is a technique that I wanted to include within my work I wanted to see if I preferred the plastic to be more of a 3D composition as I built up the layers or whether it looked more effective with their being a few layers which bespoke the piece as being more naturalistic.



The process for the first layer
I firstly decided to choose to use only one stretched piece of flexible plastic to melt because I wasn't actually sure whether it would stay as a plastic as one or whether it would break apart to create new shapes and holes. I did not use a background surface for the plastic to have something to cling onto because I wanted to see the plastic form a sculpture rather than a material on a piece of cartridge paper. As I used a heat gun to melt the plastic I realised that the most built up part of texture had to be the outlining of the material as the plastic began to collide as a wall, getting thicker and thicker. Meanwhile, as the plastic becomes manipulated into a circular shape I found that as the plastic collided as an outlining, the actual material in the middle of the composition had began to split to create holes. The plastic forms into overlapping lines of plastic because the plastic melts and gets smaller so it folds on top of the plastic beneath itself. I really do like how effective one layer of melting plastic can be as I feel that when you work on top of it, you are clearly able to highlight and define the pattern that has been created, this is why I chose to quickly define the marks of the plastic by using oil pastels. However, I was more focused on seeing the lines of the plastic to be more bold rather than choosing a specific colour, this is why I began to use the colour blue but then decided to see if experimenting with black would create a tonal effect between the background and the plastic itself that picks up the stencil of the textured surface. I have realised that the thinner the material the easier it would be to stick onto a surface to blend in with the composition, however, If I did want to add it to a composition to layer the texture  then I could cut out the outline of the built up bits of plastic, so that it is not forcibly seen as a circular shape.

Result from melting one layer of plastic

The process of the second layer
After melting one singular layer of plastic I realised that it would be more beneficial to experiment with 2 layers of plastic, this is the reason being that I believe the plastic would become more manipulated to itself if there is more of the material to melt; For this process I simply lay two layers of plastic one over the top of the other and again did not stick it to a background surface. As the process began the top layer began to create the shape of a circle as it folds itself into the bottom layer underneath, The difference between this experiment with the last is that with two layers create more depth where the texture is thicker. What I like about this experiment the most is that plastic actually creates more separation of holes and only revealing the layer underneath slightly. The texture is thicker due to the amount of layers there actually are and due to the number of layers folding on top of one another, As a result, I could begin to add smaller sheets of plastic in particular areas of the composition, I could then begin to add darker colours from dry mediums to extenuate each layer. For this experiment I used the same dry medium which was oil pastel and used darker, colder shades as they are tonal to one another, the black oil pastel is particular has slightly replicated the lines of folds from the plastic, the black shade has also lifted the first layer at the bottom of the composition. I think that if I were to add warmer, lighter and neutral shades such as a musk yellow then it just wouldn't create the same imaginable feeling of looking at the texture in a 3D aspect.

Result from melting two layers of plastic


The process of the third layer
For the third layer I took my own advice for improvement from the experiment above and decided to add more smaller sized sheets of plastic to areas symmetrically, However, from this experiment I decided to melt the first layer, second layer and then the third layer as the heat would not properly manipulate them together if I were to do them all at the same time. After layering the third layer I added the smaller, singular sheets to the places that did not look texurised enough, there were some holes created from the melting but after I added the smaller pieces of material I noticed that it actually began to shrink into itself like a ball. I like how the texture has changed from being able to see the lines from the folds of one layer to there being many circular rounded layers. I do not like this experiment overall because the colours added to it also do not allow the full effect of every layer. I could've coloured each singular layer before sticking on to the next but the colours added have just ruined the concept of seeing the surface behind by the holes that split the material.  

Result from melting three layers of plastic