Things You'll Need
3 plastic cups
3 colors marble powders
Plastic resin
Bucket
Paint stick
Mold
Mild liquid soap
Cloth
Fine steel wool
Marble is a beautiful stone that artists have used for millennium to create statues the world over. Sculpting with marble can be difficult, requiring years of dedication before acquiring enough skill to bring your vision out of the stone. An alternative exists which can provide you with statues that look like marble without the necessity of taking chisel and hammer in hand. Using plastic resin and powered marble, you can make marble statues full of grace and beauty in just hours using a rubber mold.
Step 1
Pour the plastic resin into three cups, adding the two resin components in the ratio recommended by the resin manufacturer.
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Step 2
Add the powdered marble slowly to the cups. Use three separate pigments of marble, one for each cup to create a true marbled look. Use photos of actual marble to choose compatible colors, matching the color of the powders with the colors of the marble. Stir the powdered marble into the resin using a paint stick. You want to use as much of the marble powder as possible in the resin while not thickening the mixture to greatly to flow, slightly less thick than honey.
Step 3
Add the marble mixtures to the mold at the same time. Rotate the mold by hand to cover the outside of the mold in a layer of the marble resin. Keep the mold in continuous movement, gently allowing the the resin to build up a gelled coat on the inside of the mold. The different resins will streak across the mold surface, creating a random marbled pattern. Listen to the resin inside the mold as you rotate it, when there's no sound or feel of the moving resin then it's gelled enough to stop rotating.
Step 4
Mix three more batches of the resin without the marble, one at a time, and add to the mold, rotating the mold to build up the thickness of the walls of the cast statue. Use the same process of applying the resin to the mold as used with the colored resin, rotating the mold until you no longer hear or feel the resin in motion due to gelling. Continue adding additional resin layers until you feel you have a casting that's of sufficient thickness to withstand breakage from normal use.
Step 5
Allow the resin to cure completely according to manufacturer's suggested curing times. Remove the cultured marble statue from the mold by separating the mold halves or peeling away the rubber of the mold from the marble.
Step 6
Clean the surface of the resin with a soapy cloth then rinse with water. Rub the surface of the statue with very fine steel wool to remove the thin layer of plastic covering the cultured marble resin. Wipe the surface with a damp cloth.
Tip
Fill the mold completely with the first batch of resin without marble after creating the outer marbled layer and allow the resin to cure in order to make solid statues.
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