Getting Plastered

I think Stephanie Lee coined the "get plastered" term, lol.  She is so cute!  Anyway, I have had it in my mind to mix some plaster into my art.  The idea has just sorta percolated in the back of my mind for almost two years.
 Then, lately, I have been invited to make a presentation at our local middle school fourth grade classes.  As I thought about this I was wondering... what kind of art would fourth graders like to view and hear about?  I decided they would like some art about our local pertroglyphs.  So, the plaster-petroglyphs connection was born.  The panel is a representation of what is called the "Hunt Scene" from Nine Mile Canyon.

I started out by gathering my tools.

Substrates.  I used cardboard.  (Did you know that the painting called "The Scream" was done on a form of cardboard?)  Some plaster repair powder called Patch-All.  Some gesso, a brush and a wide putty knife.
Step one=gesso the cardboard to seal the it and give the next layers a good "stick to" base, let dry.  I used six panels of cardboard.
Step two=mix up some plaster.  I think any kind would work. I used the least amount of water as I could to get a consistancy I could spread with wide putty knife.  I mixed each batch for each substrate one at a time so it would not set up on me before I could get it spread out.  I had to do the next step before I spread the plaster to help hold the plaster on.
Step three=quickly cover the gesso with white glue.
Step four=trowel plaster onto the readied board in a rather thin veneer layer.  In this case I left it rather rough as I wanted it to look like rock.  You could do a very smooth layer if you wanted to use it as a canvas. Let this dry.  I had to let it dry for a couple of days and we live in a very dry climate. A bit of curling occured but I covered the panels with wax paper and a weight after the first day and that kept the panels flat.
Step five= once the plaster is dry, gesso the plaster to seal it.
Step six=layers of paint until you reach the look you want/like.  I started with black then wiped most of that off, then added some umber coats, some sienna coats, just kept playing with it until I was happy with the look striving for the red cliffs representation.
Step six=I painted the figures with an acrylic paint color labeled parchment.
Step seven=Ink layer... I used a siennna acrylic ink thinned with water for a rather transparent bit of color wash added to  the figures.
Step eight=spray on some darker "antiquing" ink randomly.
Step nine=finish spray... I used an acrylic matte spray.
Now, I am happy.  I like all the six panels together or I could display them as singles too.

This last one is digitally enhanced.  Just playing around to see what I could do.
So, I asked my fourth grader to give me a critique on these...