New stuff

Codega: A person who lights the way for others.
Three part Bronze sculpture. Patina is brown immersion, ammonia, salt and cumin.
May, 2011

Made for a dear friend who lights my way....

Sun face.

Bronze, brown immersion patina with ammonia, salt and cumin highlights.

The fish stepping stones are concrete with glass eyes.

Made in mold making class. Rubber mold with poured concrete.

Stepping stones and new garden

The stepping stones in the photo, each and every one of them and many more, were hand made by me. I made molds of three different fish and made over 40 stepping stones thus far. I now have a rubber mold and plan to make many more. Each fish has glass eyes. You can't see them very well in the photo but they are very cool.

I dug out my grass and planted drought tolerant plants to live among the sculptures. It is fun to have my own mini scultpure garden.

New garden sculptures

The top sculpture is really an old and new sculpture. The top part [head and shawl] are from a sculpture I did a few years ago. The bottom part, the skirt, is new. The old skirt was made out of alabaster stone. However, alabaster is a very soft stone and degrades if it is outside. I wanted to move the sculpture into the garden so I made a new skirt out of concrete. The new skirt, much longer, made it a new sculpture! I like it in my new garden.

The tortuga has legs, a head and a tail! I made the turtle shell my first year in sculpture. The shell sat on alabaster stones shaped to look like a head, tail and legs. However, the sculpture had been outside and the stones were beginning to crack. I made new legs, head and tail out of bronze and my instructor welded them to the shell.

The gargoyle and totem animal were assignments in my mold making class.

Life sculpture in the garden

The top sculpture is of, yes, a naked guy. In the life sculpture class, we had live models who took off their clothes. He is done in 1/5 size which means the entire sculpture is about 11 by 8 inches.

The bottom sculpture is the torso of a young woman. I asked the instructor if it was okay to do only the torso instead of the entire body. It was just too much for the limited period of time we had in class.

There are sculptures of a hand and foot. Those are scultpures of the hand and foot of other students in the class.

The sculpture of the head is the concrete version of the clay version in another post. The hand near the head is a concrete casting of my own hand made from an alginate mold. I hope to make a knee also sometime this summer. Then, I hope to place the three sculptures amongst the little white flowers to look like she is taking a bubble bath. I'll post that if I get it finished.

There is an abstract with a shoulder and a hand. Our instructor asked us to combine two body parts.

All of the sculptures are made of concrete. I really enjoyed working with concrete and as you will see I just love being able to put these sculptures in the garden.

Life Sculpture

I am taking a life sculpture class with live models. We work in clay. Next, we will make a plaster mold. I am planning to make the sculpture in cement so I can put it in the back yard.
This was much more difficult than I expected because the instructor insisted the sculpture be life size and as realistic as possible. I like the result but could have worked on it more if there had not been a deadline. Even looking at the photos now I see things I could have improved. However, I was pleased because the model liked it and asked to photograph it for her portfolio. This is really fun and I am learning a lot: eyes are difficult, the mouth is difficult, the nose is difficult and don't even ask about the cheeks. Oh well.... next we do the torso of a male model. Moe fun.

Our Lady

Bronze and stained glass. I made this sculpture last semester but it did not fill correctly on the edge. This semester I made an extra piece to be welded into the missing edge and I made the candle holder. My instructor welded the missing edge and the candle holder. The sculpture has a black patina that I polished off in some areas.

This sculpture is a relief. A flat piece of wax [called a slab] is used and I carved into it. Sometimes, I place small pieces of wax on top of the slab where I need extra depth: for example the angel's head and wings. This piece involved two slabs.: the slab for the back and the slab which contains the image of "Our Lady." I then created a 1/4 inch channel between the two slabs where I would later insert the stained glass. The stained glass containns, red, orange and yellow pieces of glass. The bottom layer around the image contains opaque glass the top layer contains translucent glass [so the bottom layer would be visible.] I also made the candle holders out of the same glass.

If this piece had been ready, I would have entered it into the student show. Alas, it was not ready. If I still have it next year and it is not mounted here at home, it will go into the show unless I come up with something I like better.

I don't know where/to whom this piece belongs. I was inspired to make this without having a real home for it. I envision it being hung outside under a patio, eave or weather protected in some way. It needs to be in a dignifiied respectful location where it is by itself; I don't see it as garden art. It is quite heavy and will need to be carefully mounted directly into a stud if hung on a wall. I am considering options. She will wait until her perfect home is found.

Feng Shui Turtle

Feng Shui Turtle: Bronze 11 x 8 x 3 1/2

This is another piece that I first made last semester and it was ruined in the bad pour. The first version had no edge around part of the rim of the turtle shell. It could not be repaired in my opinion [my teacher urged otherwise.] It was cut up and the bronze was reused in this version. I like this version better.

My cousin, Savrina, is THE feng shui expert. She asked for a turtle with dots be made. The dots in each of the sections of the turtle were placed in the particular section purposefully and are significant as representing the Pa Kua: the 8 root trigrams of the I Ching. The image of a turtle with the dots is an important feng shui image. You will notice that in addition to the dots in each section, I added an symbol/image. Each of these images is of something positive or lucky in feng shui symbolism: yin/yan [side section near tail] represents balance, three legged toad [above the turtle's head] brings wealth, the double circle [on the top section] and the double diamond [on a side section near the tail] deflect bad energy, the bat [on the tail section] is a precious animal and represents good luck, the fish [on a middle side section] achieves good luck, there is the double happiness sign on a middle side section and the longevity sign on a side section near the head, the symbol to the left of the frog is also "auspicious" and attracts prosperity and luck .

Savrina has not seen this yet. I will post her comments unless she posts them herself.