Making a silcone mold and wax pour

Another lesson learned: two right angles are difficult and time-consuming to produce in bronze.

My bronze sculpture, "Ascension"  is the woman that is rising from the base, supported by the cloth that is draping off of her hips. While I love the waterfall effect of the drapery, in reality, it causes a lot of headaches for the wax chasers, metal chasers and base makers. It also makes production more difficult, time-consuming and costly.

Additionally, the foundry mold-maker misunderstood my instructions and added wax to the back of the fabric in the mold-making process that required hours for me to remove and chase.

So, since I learned that the the two right angles are a problem and the current cloth in wax required so much time (every single time one is made!) I decided it would be best to sculpt a new section to the drapery to replace the one that they were currently using. I took the existing wax, removed the mistake in the back and designed new draping to the bottom that just clears the base. This will limit the sculpt to only one right angle (thus making production much smoother) and will also reduce the chasing done by more than 3/4 of the current time spent on this one part of the sculpture.

Once I perfected the wax fabric, I made a pour mold and then did a sample wax pouring. I was pleased that it worked well on the first try, enabling me to get the new chased wax and the new mold to the foundry so the next two in the edition can begin their process into becoming bronze #2 & #3 of 33.

Wax pour for "Ascension" Bronze casting

It was quite foggy this morning and I nearly postponed my drive down to Art Castings in Loveland. But, since I'd already filled my travel mug with hot tea and charged up my camera, I decided not to wait and I'm quite glad!

When Jeanne greeted me, she knew just where my work, "Ascension", was in the maze of other sculptor's molds and waxes. They had just poured the first two waxes and Mac was starting to chase them.

In the montage photo:

1) collection of rubber molds inside the mother-mold

2) the mother mold encasing the rubber like a clamshell

3) you can see that the rubber comes out of the shell

4) the mother mold seams together tightly

5) hole where the wax is poured in

Here are some photos of the hollow wax that was poured. Mac is working on taking out imperfections in the wax. He will also fix where the armture came through. When he reaches a certain point in the process, they will call me and I will head down to spend the day doing finish chasing and detailing until I am satisfied before preparing the wax for the bronzing process.




You can see the whole process of making a bronze at the Art Castings site http://artcastings.com/casting-process.htmlhttp://artcastings.com/casting-process.html

Ascension Figurative Sculpture is at the foundry! ~Lori Kiplinger Pandy's first bronze

After some delay, my sculpture, "Ascension" has been delivered to the foundry at Art Castings of Loveland! They will be making a multi-piece mold of her. Then they will cast her in wax. Next they'll chase the wax. After that, they dip her into plaster and sand many times over a period of a week or more. Finally they'll melt the wax out of the plaster shell, then pour in the molten bronze. After the bronze cools, they'll smash off the outer shell to reveal the bronze pieces.

Finally, they'll assemble the pieces and weld her back together and chase all the seams. Last of all they'll apply the patina, giving her the final colors and attach to her stone base. Each an every bronze sculpture will require this process:  from pouring the wax to attaching the base!

She measures approximately 10" tall (without base) by 15" long and 6" wide. She will be supported only by the fabric that drapes from her hips. The fabric will pool onto the base, flow over the edge of the base and onto the table."Ascension" will be an edition of 33 plus several Artist's Proofs. Number 1 of 33 has been pre-sold already!

If you would like to see the entire actual process of developing a bronze from mold-making to final patina, you can view the short video from Art Castings here.

 The entire casting process will take about 10-12 weeks. I have to study some patina choices but I have something very specific in mind and will post that soon.

I must say that I am very excited to finally have her at the foundry. Being somewhat OCD about my work, I have a hard time letting go ;-)

But I must say, I loved, loved, loved, sculpting her! Even when a mishap came along to destroy
her hand or her face, I had just as much fun sculpting her again as I did the first time. In fact, the sculpting itself was very rewarding and relaxing. The hardest part of this sculpture was learning about armatures and the ways of working with this particular medium, Jmac Classic Clay.

I learned so much from working on this sculpture and am looking forward to using that hard-won experience on the next piece.

Once the sculpture is final, I will release the retail price along with the new photos.

First wax pouring of miniature fox sculpture

This is my first time pouring wax in preparation for the lost wax bronze process. I have an old crockpot that I'm using to heat the wax. This wax is something I bought an embarrassingly long time ago and can't remember what kind it is. Karen, at Sculpture Depot, assured me that pretty much any wax will work and different kinds can be intermixed. I thought I'd be really smart and put the block of wax in an old metal can inside the cooker to keep the cooker from getting wax all over it. Nice idea, but it dripped and got wax it it anyway ;-)
I'm using the pour mold (commonly called a dump mold) that I made of my miniature fox (you can see on earlier posts). After melting the wax, I took a small cup, dipped it into the melted wax and poured into the mold. Then swirled the mold around and emptied the wax back into the pot. A layer of wax remained inside. I did this several times to build up layers.
1) crockpot with melted wax in can
2) wax in the mold (I tried tape to secure the mold but it didn't stick very well - rubber bands worked better)
3) the wax mold of the fox - it has flaws and the base would need to be trimmed.
4) I was anxious to see the wax and demolded too soon - the wax was still quite warm and broke.You can see how the swirling of the wax creates a hollow casting.
5) I figured it would take several tries to learn the process enough to get good results. Luckily I can simply melt down the rejects to reuse the wax.
6) Back into the pot for remelting. I tried again that night - but the wax wasn't hot enough so it was a tad lumpy. The results were another imperfect casting so will try again later.