NOVEL ART

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23810, 17 May 1939, Page 4

NOVEL ART

PLASTER CASTS OF FISHES NEW EXHIBITION TECHNIQUE DUNEDIN MAN'S EXPERIMENTS With a fairly extensive knowledge o? pen-and-ink drawing for scientific papers as his only experience of ait, Mr George Howes, of Dunedin, has developed in the past six months a special technique, .for reproducing; iri their natural colours scientifically exact models of the fish to be found in southern waters. Mr Howes, who is a member of the Portobello Marine Aquarium Board, was prompted to begin this work by what he regarded as the colourless, stiff, and unnatural appearance of the average museum exhibit. "Drawings and paintings, while giving good results, are not the same as seeing the actual fish," Mr Howes told a Daily Times reporter yesterday. "Specimens kept in preservatives lose their colour and stuffed fish become leathery and fade. Plainly, we needed some better way to preserve both shape and colour and, after some consideration, I evolved the idea of preparing a plaster cast from the actual fish and then painting this cast, using another fish of the same species as a model. As far as Mr Howes knew, this method was not a generally recognised one, and he had developed it frfim information he had from various source:? —books he had read and exhibits he had seen. Early Experiments ;He first attempted to produce complete round casts, but at once a difficulty appeared. The delicate, thin fins would not stand handling, and a carefully-made cast would be ruined by a moment's carelessness. To be strong enough, the fins had to be thick, but this was obviously unnatural. After a number of experiments, the present system of showing only one side of the fish with a plaster plate backing was decided on. Every detail appeared on the cast, and the fins could be shown in all their delicacy, while the whole cast could be handled without any fear of breakage. Dunedin's Advantages " Painting casts from live sea fish is possible only at Dunedin, because the Portobello aquarium provides possibilities unique in New Zealand for holding the fish alive," Mr Howes said. "The moulds, being made from actual fish, give true detail of form and show most of the various points used in the determination of species. From a museum point of view, the life colours and scientifically correct form make these casts almost perfect." _ Mr Howes started his experimenting last November. His method, after securing a suitable .specimen, is to embed the fish m clay and take a plaster mould of it. It takes fully two hours'-work to make the mould and to prepare it for producing a. cast. This has to be in an oven and then cleaned and prepared so that the paint will not be absorbed by the plaster. For much of-this worky Mr Howes has secured the services of Mi A. Baker. The painting involves taking the • cast to the aquarium, and many hours of careful work in .reproducing the colours. This work, which is done in oils by Mr Howes himself, often takes several: visits to complete, and, when Satisfactory, the cast has to be varnished. So exact are these oasts, a num- [ ber of which, in their various stages of completion, werei shown to the j reporter, that the scales, and even thi delicate membranes of the fins, be clearly be distinguished. Painting-the Casts For the painting side of it, Mr Howes has'shown a real flair, and, in spite of the many difficulties encountered, he has achieved some wonderful results. Often • the day would be too dull to get the colours correctly. Not only did each fish have it£,individual colours, but ar>tually the ;aame fish would change colour/ufrder different conditions Confining'the fish in a small tank produced fear reactions and a pronounced fading out of colours—in other words, it turned pale with fright! When the painting of a cast was not finished in one day, on the next occasion, if the same individual fish was not used, there was trouble because the fish, although of the same species, always had individual differences in colour. This was particularly noticeable when fish were of different sizes. Often when a fish was practically complete the colouration as it developed proved to be not quite correct,'and this generally resulted in the whole being cleaned off and a new start made. That meant much time-and labour lost. Exhibition Specimens A month' after the first cast was made, Mr A. Hefford, chief inspector of fisheries, saw some examples of Mr Howes's work, and was so impressed that he immediately ordered a number for use in the Marine Department's display at the Centennial Exhibition. These have now been completed, and include most of the fish which are at present sent to the market. " There is still a wide field in the many strange-shaped and beautiful fish which occur in our southern waters," Mr Howes,concluded. "For museum purposes these -casts are almost perfect and would be a welcome relief from the mummified, colourless corpses that are at present in use."