Crazy casting day

I've been trying to work out how to pump out casts of sticks quickly. One of the slow parts is the first essential layer...as in the most important to 'get right' layer. I had though about dipping them, in the end I got the clay 'resevoir' mounds ready. Part dipped part sloshed the plaster over the sticks in the bucket then stuffed one end of the stick into the clay and quickly redabbed over the place I had touched. I did this 8 times and thought wow this is really working until I realised that I would have to complete 8 moulds before I went home...smaaaaart. (this was in the afternoon, I had already made 8 simple openfaced moulds. Crazy but I made 16 moulds in one day!