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.

4.5 hour Clay Portrait Study

In today's class we did a portrait study. I had the model for about 2 1/2 hours, then continued working for another 2 hours from memory. Not a very good memory, apparently, because when I was typing this I had a good view of that ear. Monster-sized and too high ;-)

So, tomorrow I believe I'll be ripping off that ear and cutting it down to size, literally. Oh well - that can be fixed. I'll still have to hollow her out, so I expect that I'll encounter a few disasters that will need fixing as that goes along anyway.

This clay is very firm and has a very high grog content. I believe it is Chestnut, a medium fire clay from Mile High Ceramics in Denver.

I hope to get an hour or two in over the next couple of days to tweak her and hollow her then. Then I'll take some better photos to post.