Easter Island head

 I'm a big fan of the Easter Island statues. I mean, how on earth did those primitive craftsmen manage to make so many of them on such a grand scale. And why? To ward off nosy neighbours perhaps? Anyway I decided to make one of my own - but on a much smaller scale. Something to put in the garden, as an ornamental piece.

Now I did toy with the idea of carving into a large block of stone - 'coz there are a few hidden in the hedgerow, since the foundations for the house were dug. I imagine I would've had to carve the initial 'rough' shape with an angle grinder and then start refining with a hammer and chisel. That's something I would have to research as I've never tried anything like stone carving before. I decide to experiment with alternative ideas that might be a little easier to execute. My first thought was to build a statue out of something light,  and then coat it in cement plaster - which I would then shape the features onto. I have some experience with cement plaster from my time in construction so there should be no problems working with that (I hoped)

I had some pieces of polystyrene foam lying around that I was able to stick together with masking tape to form the basic 'head n shoulders' shape.

Working outside, on a rare dry day, I mixed some mortar (3× sand to 1x cement + softned water) and began building up a coat of rough plaster around the form by just slapping handfuls onto the polystytene (which is very theraputic I might add)

I had not intended to remove the base polystytene form - luckily enough - and so didn't need to plan ahead/ make adjustments for that. Also retaining it keeps the overall weight down whilst still giving support.

By the way to soften water add plasticizer (or washing up liquid for small amounts - roughly a teaspoonful to 2 litres of water)

The next step is to build up more plaster onto this layer and gradually form it into a more recognizable figure.