One of my main interests as a fine artist is the converging of images, through collage and other means. So when I had the opportunity to learn how to bronze cast using the lost wax method, I decided it would make sense if I used this chance to explore the idea of compiling different sources of depiction, in a totally sculptural way. So, instead of my usual way of finding imagery, cutting it out and layering it with my own drawings, I decided to take some recognisable, and some less recognisable shapes and textures from the three dimensional world, and press them into clay, leaving me with an inverse copy, which I then poured liquid wax into. Once dried, I then cut the wax reliefs out, and collaged them again in a different order onto another sheet of wax, and repeated the process a few times until I was happy with the arrangement, and mixture of slightly abstracted forms, and still recognisable ones, a mixture of organic, and man made objects too.
The next stage in the process is to add runners and risers, and a cup, in order to create channels for the bronze to flow down once its inside the plaster shell to fill the hollow where your wax once was. Creating little bridges to help the bronze flow easily over big gaps is helpful too.
Next is to encase it in a few layers of plaster, grog and silica powder.
To protect and insulate the shell, you then dip some scrim into wet plaster and wrap it again, before putting the whole cocoon into the kiln to heat, the wax then melts and drips out the bottom leaving a void the shape of your wax for the bronze to fill.
You then plug the exit hole where the wax dripped out with oil rich casting sand, and then cover it with more plaster and scrim.
Next you heat the bronze and pour it in!
After you wait for the bronze to cool, you crack open the cocoon, chip away the plaster, machine off the runners and risers, melt any stubs left on the back with an arc welder, clean the bronze, scrubbing it with a wire brush and dipping it in acid if necessary.
I then welded on another rod, so I could stand it upright like a flag in a concrete block, and applied a layer of patina, colouring the bronze with a chemical process. I did this partly as a reference to painting, as the piece was about the gap between 2D and 3D, what constitutes collage and when it becomes a relief, and to me, collaging separate elements, and then colouring them felt like a nod to my 2D practice, but rendered this time in three dimensions.
The next stage in the process is to add runners and risers, and a cup, in order to create channels for the bronze to flow down once its inside the plaster shell to fill the hollow where your wax once was. Creating little bridges to help the bronze flow easily over big gaps is helpful too.
Next is to encase it in a few layers of plaster, grog and silica powder.
To protect and insulate the shell, you then dip some scrim into wet plaster and wrap it again, before putting the whole cocoon into the kiln to heat, the wax then melts and drips out the bottom leaving a void the shape of your wax for the bronze to fill.
You then plug the exit hole where the wax dripped out with oil rich casting sand, and then cover it with more plaster and scrim.
Next you heat the bronze and pour it in!
After you wait for the bronze to cool, you crack open the cocoon, chip away the plaster, machine off the runners and risers, melt any stubs left on the back with an arc welder, clean the bronze, scrubbing it with a wire brush and dipping it in acid if necessary.
I then welded on another rod, so I could stand it upright like a flag in a concrete block, and applied a layer of patina, colouring the bronze with a chemical process. I did this partly as a reference to painting, as the piece was about the gap between 2D and 3D, what constitutes collage and when it becomes a relief, and to me, collaging separate elements, and then colouring them felt like a nod to my 2D practice, but rendered this time in three dimensions.
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