ARTISTS TALKING

# 6 [18 July 2009]

The Play Dough Experiments Continued

Play dough 4 (yellow) A slightly vague recipe from my mum with no quantities that I forgot to put the oil in.
1/2 cup of salt
1 cup flour
1 tablespoon of oil (not actually added in this batch)
1 cup of luke warm water
food colouring

Put all ingredients in a bowl and stir until they form a dough like consistency.

Notes
My mum gave me no measurements for this recipe so just followed the quantities of the previous recipes. The main difference is that it doesn't have bicarbonate of soda and isn't cooked.

In the end I needed to add three extra handfuls of flour to get the right consistency.

Realised afterwards that I had forgotten to add the oil.

This dough was much runnier than the others and didn't hold its shape as well.

Play dough 5 (red) A cooked version of my mum's slightly vague recipe
Ingredients the same as play dough 4 (this time I remembered the oil!)
Place all ingredients in a pan and cook on a low heat stirring consistently until the consistency of dough.

Notes
Needed to add a bit of extra flour.

Play dough 6 My mum's uncooked recipe, but this time with the oil.
This is exactly the same as play dough 4 but with the oil actually added this time.

Notes
Needed to add one and a half extra cups of flour and kneeded to get consistency.

# 5 [18 July 2009]

The Play Dough Experiments

I'm trying several play dough recipes with the aim of finding out which will work best for the project. The main things I'm looking at are:
Is it easy to mould?
Does it hold its form?
Does it keep well in a soft form that can be moulded?
Can the forms created from it be preserved?
Can I cast from the moulds made with it?
 

Play dough 1 (black)  Method 1 - Saucepan www.topmarks.co.uk/Parents/Recipe.aspx
1 cup of plain four
1 cup of water
1 tablespoon cooking oil
2 teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda (the recipe said cream of tartar but I couldn't find this in the shop and I think this is similar)
half a cup of salt
food colouring (this is just aesthetic but will be good for colour coding so I remember which is which)

Place ingredients in a saucepan at a low heat. Stir continuously until mixture thickens to a firm dough texture.

Notes
This developed a bit of a dry crust whilst cooling. Although, later I discovered they all did except batch 4.

Play dough 2 (pink) Method 2 - Microwave www.topmarks.co.uk/Parents/Recipe.aspx
Ingredients same as play dough 1

Place all ingredients in a plastic container and cook for one and a half minutes in a microwave. Stir the mixture and microwave again for one minute.

Notes
The dough had hard crusty bits in it where it had cooked too much around the edges.

Play dough 3 (blue) 1 minute Play Dough Recipe www.becomingdomestic.co.uk/2006/10/28/how-to-make-...
1/2 cup of salt
1 cup of flour
1 of bicarbonate of soda (again the recipe said cream of tartar)
1 cup of boiling water (from the kettle) mixed with food colouring.

Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl and then mix vigourously with hot water.

Notes
This had a slightly firmer consistency than the other batches but was still easily manipulated.

# 4 [15 July 2009]

Workshop Notes 15/07/09 (continued)

# 3 [15 July 2009]

Workshop Notes 15/07/09

Aims of the workshop

    ⁃    To introduce myself and the activity to participants.

    ⁃    To find effective ways of working with the participants and to observe what works as well as what doesn’t.

    ⁃    To experiment with more than one way of making a mould to find out what suites each participant best including moulding the space inside and the outside space around the hand.

Outcomes of the workshop

    ⁃    At the end of the workshop I should have introduced the activity and myself to the participants.

    ⁃    I should have found some appropriate and productive ways of working with the participants and have observed what didn’t work as well as what did in order to plan for the next session.

    ⁃    I should have some initial moulds that may or may not be relevant for casting and taking forward.

Activity

    ⁃    Introduce myself and the activity using an object of reference that will be used at the beginning of each session.

    ⁃    To work one to one with participants to form clay moulds of the inside and outside space of their hands.

Materials and resources

Air drying clay, hand wash, containers for clay, object of reference (this is an object, in this case a piece of clay, that will be used every week to introduce the activity to the participants)

Notes and observations

    ⁃    The clay was too hard for the participants to make enough of an impression in, especially the people who didn't have the strength or motor skills to squeeze it.

    ⁃    The size and shape of the piece of clay that I gave people effected the form they created.

    ⁃    I had to support people to squeeze the clay which lead to ambiguity about how far their hands would naturally close around the clay.

    ⁃    Some participants wanted to play with the clay and manipulated it in a way that meant the form wasn't accurate.

    ⁃    I also formed the clay around the outside of one participants' hand but the clay was still too hard to get an accurate mould.

    ⁃    I gave one participant a ball of play dough to squeeze. This was a bit softer and worked marginally better.

Development for next week

    ⁃    Make play dough that is much softer

    ⁃    Workout a set shape and size of dough to start with and prepare before the session

    ⁃    Prepare a more accurate way of moulding the outside of people's hands

    ⁃    Experiment with casting from play dough

    ⁃    Another option could be to remove the clay step all together and just give people plaster to squeeze

# 2 [15 July 2009]

Joy of Sound Friday session observations

The following are observations and images from a recent Joy of Sound music workshop that I attended to observe how the participants, who have severe and profound disabilities, played the instruments and to identify issues that they faced with this in particular using plectrums and bows.

    ⁃    Participants hold the guitars and violins in various positions. Guitars are often played flat on people's knees. Violins are played in a number of positions and usually held by the body of the instrument not the neck.

    ⁃    The participants who used plectrums often held them upside down or wrong way round. One of the main difficulties that they appeared to have was not that they couldn't hold the plectrums (I am presuming that there are people who couldn't hold them but they had not been given/not chosen to use one) it was that they gripped them too hard stopping the sound. They also often caught the strings with their hands or arms.

    ⁃    The participant who was playing the violin gripped the bow by the stick. She only used a small part of the bow which would suggest that a shorter bow that was easier to control could be designed. A larger gap between the stick and the hair and a thicker stick or a grip on the stick would also seem to make it easier to hold.

# 1 [15 July 2009]

Overall aims of the project
To make moulds of people’s hands, who participate in Joy of Sound music sessions, to be used to develop bows, plectrums and other instruments that they can hold more easily.

Joy of Sound http://www.joyofsound.net/ is an inclusive arts project that provides workshops and equipment to enable everybody, regardless of their abilities and dexterity, to take part and enjoy participating in music making and other arts activities.

Overall outcomes of the project
At the end of the project the proposed outcome is to have moulds of at least three of the participants’ hands that can be cast and developed into parts of accessible instruments to be used in JOS workshops. It is probable that the instruments will be bespoke and specific to the individual. The workshop outcomes are likely to feed into the JOS and MERU ( HYPERLINK "http://www.meru.org.uk/" \t "_blank" http://www.meru.org.uk/) project to design bespoke instruments.

Input, comments and suggestions welome.