Solo Dancer

Swimming View

Solo Dancer "Tummy" view

Mariposa View 1

Mariposa View 2

Mariposa View 3

Mariposa View 4

Mariposa View 5

Mariposa & Flower Completed

Yesterday, FedEx delieved the black marble base. The photo was taken with an iPhone, professional photos will follow....

Mariposa & Flower w/ black marble base

Preparing the Composition

Three days working at the foundry with Danny who prepares the bronze for patina. Many steps are repeated to complete a smooth finish; grinding filling, welding, sand blasting and polishing. Checking to remove all little nooks, bumps and scratches.

Spot brazed to set design

Note the shine on the butterfly, just polished and the flower sand blasted

Ready for Approval !

It's almost November, as you can see the process of creating a sculpture out of Bronze is very time consuming, so many hours, and so many steps. I just received an email that the foundry is ready for me to come up and approve the clean up of all the parts.
The next step is to put them all together!
Can you tell I am  VERY EXCITED !!

Wax Poured

Beautiful 

Wax molds look great, prep time worth was worth it, now fine-tuning all areas making the wings as symmetrical as possible. The base pedals was flatten on the bottom to eliminate the rocking and create a solid foundation for the butterfly and flower. All pieces will be welded to together after they are poured to give a clean line at seams.

Base of stand, thin wax added for design, all is textured.

Picture Tell Thousand Words

Rough first thought for piece

Pie tin makes great base

The pieces are complete, time to assemble them in a way that can give the welders an idea on how to put the pieces together. I have learned to draw everything out, explain everything over and over again. Remember one person’s yellow is another person’s Cadmium Yellow Light, same with sculpture, draw out the design so everyone gets the “picture” of what you want.

Don’t ASSUME

That being said, I took cardboard, wire, paper, glue and a pie tin with Duct tape to create a very rough 3D image of the sculpture. It give me a visual guide, to see if I am on track. It gives the foundry an idea on how I would like the project to look. Which is turn, gives the people that are doing the welding ideas to help me improve the position of all the parts.

Cardboard makes great pedals

She's has to sit on something!

The Flower

Word of caution; when presenting a quote, you better be darn sure you are giving an estimate and let the client know. I am grateful my client gave me full range to create. I had this beautiful butterfly “Hanging in mid-air”, what to do, but create a flower!

This is where the term OMG really fits.

The designs of Art Nouveau came to mind. I love the lines and curves, the flower will have the feeling of movement. The butterfly will be sitting upon the a pedal, yes we add legs and antenna into the quote. 

Very involved! Many many hours labor.

Here's a link to share the beauty of Nouveau

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Nouveau

The flower has large and small pedals, three each along with the base being three additional pedals. Next is the stem, three pieces designed to be welded together.

What does all this mean?

I went way over budget! Thirteen pieces over, that is intense labor! Thank goodness my client was very understanding, and it taught me a big lesson. It’s a very special gift and he loved the idea. I was lucky. I could have just given a bud for the butterfly to sit on.

Wire Mesh crates the pedals

Working on ideas for the stem

Wooden Butterful mold

Clay add to fill in the gaps

The wooden butterful is now complete, it is very smooth which isn't what I want, so I added texture to the wood. I also needed to fill in the areas which were not solid with clay. The beginning steps are involved, the process is time consuming. Best to take your time and do all the corrections in the clay because once the piece is in wax it takes more steps to correct. If one waits till the piece is created in bronze to correct errors, that could take weeks to correct. 

Wire used to hold everything in place

Creating the Butterfly

First Clay Mold

Once the design was approved, it was time to create the clay mold. Having the grand idea of rolling out the clay, cutting the design out, was the first thing that came to mind. I thought, "Just like making cookies, how fast is that!" Wrong! Making something out of clay without an armature leads to complete frustration. I made the clay design in the middle of summer and the temperature inside my art studio was eighty degrees, which caused the entire design to fall apart.

Plan “B”, open the design up and insert wire.

Nope, the design was not symmetrical after cutting into the clay.

Trash it.

Plan “C”, create an entirely new butterfly out of wire mesh, making the design with a “Sharpie” and cutting it out.

Nope, the mesh wasn’t fine enough and I cut my hands several times on the wire because the gloves were too large to wear while cutting.

Plan “D”, don’t give up, keep thinking…

Wood ! Wood doesn’t bend and anything can be used as a mold because silicone does not stick to anything!

Creating the body, measuring the thickness for the mold

No smaller than 1/8" to hold the silicone

Design for commission Bronze Butterfly

25^th of July on a Saturday“Solo Dancer” my bronze sculpture met with Cassandra Davis theEducation Volunteer Coordinator at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach California,to have a meeting with the educational department.
The reception was wonderful.Cassandra took photos of Solo Dancer, next to the stingray pool, amazing.Thank you Cassandra!

Real Stingray in the sand and another one bottom left of photo