Painted Belly Casts

A dear friend of mine wanted her belly to be cast and painted. She ordered casting strips from a medical supply store online and we created her belly cast from her first pregnancy (a boy), in May of 2008. She wanted a lot of blues. I later painted the cast according to her taste in regards to color palette and imagery.

For her second pregnancy (a girl), she wanted more feminine imagery, and for there to be a lot of reds. Her wishes were my command! To this day I hope that they are holding up well. They were my first casts, and after doing some research online, I found that there is a way to make the texture of the medical gauze to disappear, which is basically to get plaster and put another layer on top of the cast after it dries, and then sand it down so its really smooth, like porcelain. If I do more of these I will use the smoothing method to relieve myself of the headache of painting on a texture. Other than that, it was a joy to do these... a labor of love.