Initially I had envisaged casting the rope in a more translucent material than latex, that would be more subtle and closer in its qualities to the snake skin that I was given. I wanted it to be more fragile, paper-like instead of rubbery. Indeed I tried making a cast out of paper, but it fell apart very easily and was not at all a success. As I have a lot of leftover sellotape from last year's project, I used this; the process was dramatically quicker than the latex experiment, but still had the same sense of the result being 'revealed' when the sellotape shell was peeled away. I was happy with the shape, how it had taken on the twists of the rope fairly well and it was translucent as I had hoped; however, I can't see myself taking this material any further as I don't think it lends any relevant connotations to themes of 'memory' or 'skin' which I am dealing with.
Although in the workshop I was told that latex would be a better alternative to pva for casting the exterior of the rope, I decided to try it out. Releasing the dried glue from the fibres was even trickier than with the latex, as the fibres seemed to almost have absorbed the liquid so it was fused together to a greater extent. I really like how, although the pva did not retain the shape of the twists of rope, the fibres that set in the material showed where the strands were. The pattern is translated instead by the brown-grey colour of the fibre. Likewise with the sellotape, I don't think I will be taking this idea any further, but I found it a really interesting exercise to do.
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