I Have Cast The First Continental Soldier

Final Cast

3rd Step Make Plaster Shell Over Mold

1st Step Original Clay

2nd Step Make the Rubber Mold

4th Step Cold Cast Pour of Resin/Bronze

Shell, Mold and Clay

It's Been Awhile, It Is Now March 2017!

Wow, time flies when you are busy.

Nancy and I took a Major trip last year in Oct. a month in Italy.

We took our two adult daughters for the first week, they left their kids and husbands in Oregon. Did all of the touristy things as they had never been to Italy, or Europe. Rome, Pisa, Cinque Terre, Florence and Venice. Then we put them on the plane and Nancy and I spent 14 more days in an apartment in Florence, then rented a car and for a week we drove around Tuscany.
Home at the end of Oct and dropped out until the Holidays.

I have started several paintings of the trip since Jan. of this year, but have not finished any. I got involved in a monumental project instead and that has been taking up most of my time this year.

I have re-designed the Oregon Revolutionary War Memorial in Beaverton, Oregon for the Sons of the American Revolution and their partners. And, I am sculpting three life-size soldiers to be cast in bronze for the Memorial. Here is the design of one side of six walls, and ideas for the three soldiers. Check out the website for the Memorial www.ORWM.org.to see more about the project.

Also, I have just finished the first figure, the Continental Soldier in a small clay
maquette size 14", and we are thinking about casting these and selling them to help fund the Memorial. I will have to price them out at a foundry to see what the costs will be. This is the first maquette of the CS as I am sure I will massage it until it is just right. Then I will sculpt it life-size in clay, probably make my own molds and send it off to the foundry for casting.

Here is what I have so far.

Wow, What a Last Few Months

These last few months have been mega creative.

Two new paintings of the National Parks series. The book Behind the Paint - National Parks 2014 is in the final edit, once corrected, then off to the press and on to Amazon.

Plus I have completed two of the three new pinch model sculptures of my couples series. The last sculpture # 3 is almost completed. I say that considering it has taken me four days and I have torn it apart at least a dozen times. It was speaking to me, but I was not listening. I think I am finally in tune with the clay again.

The paintings are ready to go to the galleries, and the sculptures will be ready for me to make the molds and cold cast (bonded bronze) them myself.

Here then are my latest creations. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have in creating them.

My new paintings:

Arches

Zion

My new sculptures:

Couples #1-Front

Couples #1- Back

Couples #1 - Side

Couples #2 - Front

Couples #2 - Back

Couples #2 - Side

A new year brings new possibilities

Over the years I have been asked to do some sculptures of Couples. This year is the year. Infact I have almost completed my first one. 

I thought I would do them as a Pinch Model series, that way without a lot of upfront money spent I can produce three or four new pieces for the galleries. If people like them and want larger ones in hot cast bronze, I can create them and have the money from the clients to pay for the foundry. If there is no interest in the series, or in larger ones, no big money lost. 

Having a good time on this series.

December, 2015 Finally success.

Five new paintings completed, four from my National Parks trip and one from a trip several years ago in Bend, Oregon.

Moved to the Big City

November, 2015

The new studio is put together and I have started painting again. Thrown out the three I have been working on and starting over. Don't know why I  can't seem to finish a painting, but I have started again.

August, 2015

Decided to move back to the Portland area to be closer to our kids and grand-kids. Moving the end of this month, so work has been put on hold. Good news is that my studio space has more than doubled and I can run out and within minutes buy art supplies I run out of instead of ordering them online and having to wait a week. looking forward to just  browsing in an art store again.

June, 2015

I am beginning work on some new paintings of my 2014 trip to the National Parks. Also with these works will be a new book of these paintings. I know, I am running behind, but I became so engrossed in the pinch models I lost time. But I am back to work.

Male Pinch Models

This year I have decided to work on some small sculptures that I can also make the molds on and cast myself. These would be some of my "pinch models", which are quick 9" sculptures that I make and from these I make my larger pieces. The pinch models help me figure out the emotion and body position of the piece and also the wire and pipe structure I need to support the clay and the piece.

By nature these models are rough and very "chunky" and lack the final refinements and details of the finished piece. But I am fond of them because they are so explosive. In the past, I usually destroy the pinch models when I have completed the larger piece. No more.

I have made the first three male figures out of a series of maybe 6-10 figures, and my goal was to cast them myself in a marble like stone, with a small edition of 6 of each.

You know what they say about the best laid plans. Well, they are right.

I never have made my own mold and so hve never cast anything. I have made wax pieces from of my existing molds, but that's it.

First step is to make the rubber mold around the original clay piece. Piece of cake, I know what they are to look like and I use Smooth On Rebound 25 as suggested. I start by painting the rubber on, wait 90 mins, paint on another layer, wait 90 mins. then trowel on the next three layers (with  the 90 min wait between, a long day). And I decided to make all three molds at once ... save some time. 

Problem was, in the Youtube videos from Smooth On, they did not show me how to make the flanges wide enough and tight enough to hold the casting I poured. So after I made the outside Plasti-Paste mold around the rubber mold (another 1/2 day), I extracted the molds from the original and poured my first casting in silicon, just to make sure the molds held the detail. With the silicon they were perfect.

     

When I poured the final stone solution, the molds leaked like a sieve. And the powders I used did not look like marble, but bad plaster. 

Time to regroup and rethink this. I went back on Youtube and did some searching and found a couple of ladies in England that was using the same mold making products I am and they made a video showing how they did it. They used playing cards to make their flanges and legos to make their register pins. 

 

So, I started over,  on one this time, I think I am getting smarter. And it worked. But instaed of a stone, what am I going to make the final cast out of? How about a cold cast bronze, or bonded bronze which will allow me to add patinas like my cast bronze pieces. 

I redid all of my molds and cast everything using Easy Flow Clear with bronze powder mixed in. Then I researched how to get a good patina on the pieces, and I found patina waxes. I did not want to work with chemicals like cupric nitra and liver of sulfer, and the waxes worked great. Instead of leaving the chemicals on for a few minutes, the waxes you leave on for at least an hour then rub off what you don't want. Over the bronze casting I rubbed on a black wax then a green wax over that. They look great. 

    "Inquisitive"         "Loosening Up"            "Success"

   

I just published my first eBook!

I just published my first eBook!

Stepping up to the plate, and into the 21st century, I have published my book "Behind the Paint - Italy 2011" as an electronic book, available through Amazon.com.

I got the free book from Amazon "Building Your Book for Kindle", read it over a few times, 36 pages, and it sounded pretty straight forward. Only takes 5 minutes.

Well, four tries and 2 days later I was finished and the ebook was up on Amazon.

My problem was that I set up the book to be printed in a publishing software, not Word. So, I had to copy and paste all of the formatted text from the publishing software into Word, which stripped all of the formatting of headlines, paragraphs and captions and photos. It was dropped into Word as just text, except the images, which did not come across.

Next, I set up the formats in Word as per Kindle's specs, it took several minutes, and then go through each line making sure it was correct. Then I had to import all of the photos and redo all of the captions again.

When that was done, I uploaded the files to Amazon, quite simple really, and checked the previewer. Did not look quite right, so I revised it several times, until I was happy.

If you are a normal author, you write in Word and you don't have photos, and making an eBook is a piece of cake. If you are an artist and a graphic designer, and your book is photo heavy, well, it just takes a bit longer.

I do plan on publishing all of my books as eBooks, slick once I understand now how it will work.

So look forward to two more eBooks in the next few months, and I am editing my fourth book of the "Behind the Paint" series, it is on five National Parks, and I have started to write my fifth book, "Behind the Bronze" a series of stories and photos of my sculpture. Books four and five in paperback first, then eBooks.

Ready for Stormy Weather Arts Festival 2014.

Ready for Stormy Weather Arts Festival 2014.

I am ready for the Stormy Weather Arts Festival. My sculpture demo is Saturday Nov. 8 from 11 - 4pm. With a reception starting at 5pm. The place is Cannon Beach, Oregon and at Haystack Gallery.

I will be working on a new alabaster stone piece, weather permitting outside Haystack Gallery under their white tent. This piece titled "WindsweptIII" is about 14" high and as you see from the image below, she is seated on some rocks with the wind blowing her hair behind her.

This piece first started out as a clay piece to be cast in bronze (the clay figure on the right in the first photo), then I did a life size bronze of the head only,  titled "Spirit of the Sea". Now he is becoming a stone piece. She is very versatile.


I am also unveiling a new completed stone sculpture. She is 18" tall also out of alabaster. A photo of her is also below.

Oh, and I will be having a book signing of my three paperback books; "Behind the Paint" both one and two, and "The Building of Courage".

Come by and see me and my new "Ladies", and stay for a drink and some nibbles.