Lost Wax Casting - my thoughts (Cross post, also posted on PedroRamirezArt.blogspot.com)

This summer has presented me with my first exposure to the lost wax process under the instruction of Oscar Garcia at the art students league. It is a fascinating thing, making something out of super lightweight, soft, fragile wax will become a heavy, durable, metal object. It is not really the wax object at all, but a copy of it, made from the impression or space left in the mold that the wax used to occupy. You can read more about the process on wikipedia.

When my sculpture came out of her mold, I was sorely disappointed, I thought she had cast badly with pits, bumps, and flashing all over the place. Also her hair did not cast completely, it was totally missing from the part that was supposed to be behind her neck, only the hair on her head and the hair on her back casted well. As I began to learn more about bronze and look at fellow classmates work, I could see that my piece was indeed cast very well, with intricate details like the fingers and faces well preserved for the viewer. I also found out through working on the piece how easy it is to chase away the imperfections and polish the piece to gold brilliance. I personally was able to beat some strips of bronze down flat, twist them with pliers, and have the technical instructor weld them onto the piece which you can see in the pictures below the before where hair was missing, and the current which is still being worked on but at least her hair has continuity. This is my first bronze sculpture, I am very excited about future possibilities with larger projects and perhaps even public commissions (hey, you gotta shoot for the stars I say).

Click the images to see texture!
The piece has just come out and is a mess, all of this had to be chisled off.





Below is the work cleaned up, polished a bit, but still missing the hair.

Here some hair has been welded on, but much work went into making it look better, I am still working on her, she is not finished by any means.

At the studios at the art students league with dremmel tool.

The work of art as currently stands, with the sprue connecting the feet finally sawed off. She will be worked on for the next couple of weeks. The piece holds masks. Although she is seemingly an allusion to the Janus masks of theater comedy and tragedy from ancient Greece, the masks actually symbolize the many faces we "wear" when we need to put on different personalities depending on the situation... I mean, who is the same in an job interview as they are with their mother at home?

Lost Wax Casting - my thoughts

This summer has presented me with my first exposure to the lost wax process under the instruction of Oscar Garcia at the art students league. It is a fascinating thing, making something out of super lightweight, soft, fragile wax will become a heavy, durable, metal object. It is not really the wax object at all, but a copy of it, made from the impression or space left in the mold that the wax used to occupy. You can read more about the process on wikipedia.

When my sculpture came out of her mold, I was sorely disappointed, I thought she had cast badly with pits, bumps, and flashing all over the place. Also her hair did not cast completely, it was totally missing from the part that was supposed to be behind her neck, only the hair on her head and the hair on her back casted well. As I began to learn more about bronze and look at fellow classmates work, I could see that my piece was indeed cast very well, with intricate details like the fingers and faces well preserved for the viewer. I also found out through working on the piece how easy it is to chase away the imperfections and polish the piece to gold brilliance. I personally was able to beat some strips of bronze down flat, twist them with pliers, and have the technical instructor weld them onto the piece which you can see in the pictures below the before where hair was missing, and the current which is still being worked on but at least her hair has continuity. This is my first bronze sculpture, I am very excited about future possibilities with larger projects and perhaps even public commissions (hey, you gotta shoot for the stars I say).

Click the images to see texture!
The piece has just come out and is a mess, all of this had to be chisled off.





Below is the work cleaned up, polished a bit, but still missing the hair.

Here some hair has been welded on, but much work went into making it look better, I am still working on her, she is not finished by any means.

At the studios at the art students league with dremmel tool.

The work of art as currently stands, with the sprue connecting the feet finally sawed off. She will be worked on for the next couple of weeks. The piece holds masks. Although she is seemingly an allusion to the Janus masks of theater comedy and tragedy from ancient Greece, the masks actually symbolize the many faces we "wear" when we need to put on different personalities depending on the situation... I mean, who is the same in an job interview as they are with their mother at home?

Street fairs in 2009? CIty college finito? Art Students League = still current

I have recently gotten my street fair vending permit reinstated and may do some NYC street fairs this summer. I am transferring my job into New Jersey so that I can cut back on the cost of commuting and also take my working hours down so that I can follow my heart and get back into the swing of vending my polymer clay creations. Also I really want to take the ceramic class at City College one more time, but I don't have $700 to do so. I think I am going to just use a credit card and take the class, Its true that I have finished with all my required classes at city college, and don't have to take the class, but I really think that I have a definitive direction now with my ceramic work and just don't have the facilities to make the pottery, at City I would be able to create my art.

I am still wanting to go to graduate school, but due to my being quite economically dependent on myself, I may just stay here and go to William Paterson University instead of the big name schools that I wanted to, my existence is currently marred with mountains of debt anyway from my undergraduate studies, including my $10,000 Chase student loan which I have to begin making payments on. No worries though, I believe in manifesting what we want, and soon I will be making oogles of money again, I just have to be active in the process and not idle or caught up with trader Joe's too much.

So, simplifying my life, hopefully soon I will be working and living in New Jersey, going to NYC to work at the art students league on Wednesdays and after that taking the ceramics class at city college. I will also be "taking" the bronze sculpting class at the art students league but most likely making the wax figures at home and only participating in the pour at their north campus when its all said and done.
I look forward to also updating this blog more, I think I will make it a point to write in it everyday when I get home, I think about art everyday, I might as well put it out there.

Ascent! Sparks fly

I have made four tiny figures called sparks recently, but only today were they baked, and one even got its wings. It is the first figure in a very long time that I mounted to look like it was flying. I used to do this all the time with small figures in the past, but now everything old is new again. The figure is tiny, and I mean TINY, smaller than almost any other one I have ever done, and it was a pain trying to photograph it so I had to use the flash.

TheButterflyPeople.com is being madeover

You know, I never thought that re-creating my website would be so much fun. I am having a blast. Analyzing the butterfly peeps has made me aware of them and what they are. The new website is super duper under construction but I am posting pieces as I am done with them instead of taking the site down and then re-launching. Today I have began to work on the species section which is really fun, I am going to complete the section on healers and eventually get to the other ones. Also, the purchase -> past works page works where you can see all the old stuff. I also put a picture of the first butterfly person I ever made on the “what are they” page. Hang with me and eventually I will have a complete little site with a bunch of musings about the butterfly people which I can share with all those who enjoy my work.

update 06-17-09

Hey all, sorry for the lack of updates, I have been busy doing all the prep work for my first bronze sculpture, it is going to be very small, around the size of the butterfly folks, but the entire process takes so much longer, months longer, so this is intensive and time consuming. I will do a blog on the piece after she is done all about the whole process and it will be very long and informative. In the meantime I should mention that I am going to create characters on my website, the butterfly people are going to be almost like comic book heroes but more my style, each one with its own attributes and strengths and weaknesses, I will write stories about how they will change the world, one person at a time. The big difference this will make is that I will only make these characters from now on, I will take molds of their faces so that they can continue in each figure of them I make and keep a pictorial record of them. Its gonna be fun, they are each going to represent something very powerful and important to me and each will have its own page on the website talking about it, it brings so much more to the figures, it gives them an identity that they never had. More on this some other time, in the meantime I am taking my website down to work on it.
Toodles!

List of seven, one made

I made a list of affirmations, which are all grouped generally under prosperity/success, that I wanted to incorporate onto figures, there are seven of them and they are:

Mental: Powerful strong mind
Inner: Soul well attended to
Physical: Healthy robust body

Freedom and Creativity

Joy, Laughter, happiness

Love and productive relationships

Wealth and abundance

I feel that asking for these in the order they are above is the way to go since you want to set the foundation to use your head with a sound mind, and your soul must be fed before you move onto the physical realm. Once here in the physical, it is integral to have a healthy body (not just fit but an overall health of all tissues and systems of the body) and the most basic of needs must be met before being able to express oneself. Joy, laughter, and happiness are just states of being which are positive, love and relationships come almost last, they may even come after success which I didn't list since it is not a sort of thing we just end up with. We must first be unwounded beings before we can have truly prosperous/productive relationships, we have to heal ourselves from past hurt and pain and to recognize our failings and turn them around. That said, for some reason the first figure I made was the love and relationships one! I don't know why I made it first, but it exists! I must say, it was nice to create the male form again... even with both figures being quite tiny and fitting into the palm of my hand.

I have created couples In the past, holding each other, grasping each other, so intertwined that you could not tell whose hand was whose or which foot belonged to the other, but this couple, though merely sitting side by side with arms on each others backs are so very conjoined, and together, they exude more companionship than any other work I have done which is odd since they are not really even looking at each other. That is the point, they are both looking off into the future together at the same time, in the same direction, the focus is not on each other, but on the journey ahead. On the red cloth (red represents passion/love), is written relationships & love. An important part (though best a late one in my opinion) of our quest for prosperity.