Grote Making 101


Supply list: (Feel free to improvise!)

Hypertufa ingredients:
Perlite
Portland Cement
Sphagnum Peat Moss

Tools:
One set of ceramic tools available at Dick Blick (cheap), or your local craft store.
Tools
One big fat wooden spoon
One garden trowel

Containers:
Large coffee can with both ends cut out
Gallon ice cream bucket ( I recommend tin roof sundae)
Small Campbells soup can
Small terra cotta pots, or disposable plastic drinking cups
Plastic bags

Misc:
A flat working surface (I use an old cupboard front)
Water
Rubber gloves
Mask (so you don't breathe in the powdered cement)
Rocks or large flat marbles for eyes


Ok, now we are ready to make some grotes!
Set your coffee can tube on the flat surface, put a plastic bag inside it, leave some of the plastic on the outside. Soak your small terra cotta pot in water and put it upside down inside the coffee can. (If you are using plastic cups just skip the soaking in water part.) Center your terra cotta pot in the coffee can and make sure the plastic bag is as flat to the sides as possible.

Mix up your tufa in the gallon ice cream bucket. I use 7 campbells soups cans of peat moss, one can of perlite (stir with wooden spoon), put mask and gloves on now, and 3.5 cans of Portland cement. Stir your dry ingredients. Start adding water a little at a time, stir with wooden spoon or garden trowel, whichever is easiest for you. It's ok to take your mask off as soon as the cement is wetted down the first time. Keep adding water until you have a nice thick, lumpy, sort of dry looking tufa mixture.

Begin spooning it into your coffee can, make sure the pot stays centered and that you tamp the tufa down around it. Fill up the rest of the coffee can. Fold the plastic bag up over the top, slowly lift the coffee can off. Repeat these steps to make as many tufa cylinders as you like. You must take the coffee can off ASAP or you will never get it off! (Ask me about the hardened coffee can lump in the backyard!)


Let the tufa sit in the plastic bag for 3-5 hours, then carefully unwrap it and turn it over. Mix up some more tufa in these proportions: 2 cans of peat moss, 1 can of cement, 1/4 can of perlite. Add water, mix. It will help if this tufa is a little wetter, but not soupy. Put your rubber gloves on. Start forming an eyebrow in your hand, it should look like a cresent moon. Press it on to the hypertufa cylinder. Use one of your wooden tools and while you hold the eyebrow in place with one hand, push the edges of it onto the tufa head with the wooden tool. Go around the entire eyebrow anchoring it down this way.

Make another eyebrow. For the nose make a triangle in your hand-- press it on. Make cheeks bones from small ovals. Make round eyes-- you can inset rocks or large half marbles at this point. I make an oval shaped hamburger patty for each ear and then press my finger into it to create the beginnings of grooves. Go back to the nose and put in two small balls on each side for a bigger wider nose, if you like skinny noses leave as is. If you have enough room for a mouth add another eyebrow shaped piece and then press a groove into the middle. OK, IT DOESN'T HAVE TO LOOK PERFECT AT THIS POINT. When it dries you are going to go back in and take away some areas so don't sweat the small details now!

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I wait about 2 hours for the face to set-up, then I go back in with my tools and take away areas. I exaggerate the places taken away. (Here's where my 4 years of drawing nekkid people comes in) if you look closely at the human face you can see the areas that need to be taken out. For instance there is a pocket in the inner corner of the eye socket close to the nose. Under the eyebrow is another good one. Feel your own eye, see how your eyebrow sticks out over the round orb of your eye? Now feel how round your eye really is, almost like a golf ball. You can use (your S.O.) for a model... make him/her get nekkid and then feel just his/her face, lol! I could go on and "tell" you all the little places to take away, but I'm sure you can figure it out without me telling you, and it will be more fun too!

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Now wrap the head back up in the plastic bag and let it sit there for at least 24 hours until the tufa completely sets up. Then you can take the bag off and let it dry fully. Air temperature will effect curing time-- the warmer it is the faster it will cure. If you used a plastic cup and want to remove it go ahead and use one of your tools to loosen it around the edge, now grab a pliers and start peeling it toward the middle, viola! It's out! If you used terra cotta pots just leave them in there.


I will assume no responsibility for any damages to persons or property that may result from the use of these instructions. Use at your own risk.