Learning the Process; "How Bronze Sculptures are Cast"

I have been asked many times the process in creating bronze. The first sentence I ask is, "How much time do you have?" Sharing the process of creating a bronze sculpture takes more than five minutes, its lengthy and very fulfilling. I found this site in Oregon that is very detail and not too wordy. It also has a bunny as an example, something we can all relate to. I hope you find the site informative.
How Bronze sculptures are cast.

Forest & Ocean Art Gallery

Forest & Ocean in Laguna Beach California is located at 430 Ocean Ave. across the street from the Police station and down from the ever so famous Pageant of the Masters, Sawdust Festival. In the gallery you will find all my bronze sculptures. The "Fever" has just arrived after its showing at Sparks Gallery in San Diego.

the Fever Exhibition

Sparks Gallery in San Diego has accepted "the Fever" into the exhibition "Edge of the Ocean". She will be on show Feburary 19 - May 21
Sparks Gallery San Diego

You can read my artist bio at:
Judy Salinsky Artist

Sneak Preview

29th of August brought much excitement, the beginning of the Patina process. Adding a mixture of different chemicals creates the tint on the medal. It' applied with a brush in a "Dibby Dab" technique which my oil painter instructor would not approve. The reason; the artist holds a torch in one hand applying heat to the medal. The other hand is applying the chemicals, within seconds the tint shows up along with the marks of the brush. One wants the tint to appear like airbrush or whatever technique they choose. With a smooth surface, I chose blended appearance.

Photos worth a thousand words....

Trying to imagine where to place the rays and kelp was a challenge. Lots of planning and thinking. 

"Chasing" is finished, sand blasting, polishing, gridding, polishing all
in the love of Bronze

Remember the "real" kelp wax form?

Here stands "Real Kelp" in Bronze

Placement is good.

Setting Up Rays

The process continues:

Making the wax mold, spurring the wax form for the bronze of flow into, the ceramic shell, then the molden bronze. After the bronze cools down from the 2200 degrees, the time consuming task of "Chasing" cleaning up the ceramic; gridding off the shell, sand blasting, sanding, gridding and polishing.

Setting up the placement

Real Kelp bronzed to add a special touch

Ready for Patina (tint to medal)

It has been an exciting few months at Off Track Gallery in Encinitas, CA. We are a community art guild and my paintings have been selling. Also, won a few first place ribbons and Best in Show! Those are posted on my Facebook page.
I have been thinking about galleries for the bronze and in the works of finding a home for the pieces. Also ready to create a new piece.

Five rays & kelp ready to be staged

Mold making is very important, it creates the perfect wax replication of the clay piece 

Dahlia is a perfectionist in making the wax mold flawless, which in turn makes
the bronze casting easier to work on

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