At the foundry

What you are seeing here actually happened weeks ago. 

WAXES:  In each rubber mold wax is poured or brushed.  The wax is not solid but it is hollow. The pieces will be cast this way and put together in metal. 

THE DIP: After the foundry makes the waxes they are dipped into a slurry mixture and coated with sand. This makes a ceramic shell both inside and out.  This process is not captured on this blog.  

 THE POUR: The wax is burned out of the shell and molten bronze is poured into each of the pieces. This process is often referred to as the "lost wax method of bronze casting."


CHASING:
There is still much to do. Each shell must be broken off of the bronze, the metal is then cleaned and each of the pieces will be welded together.

WELDING:
It is a little horrific seeing John and the dog cast about and in pieces.  The weld marks look horrible as well, but the foundry workers are artists and can blend each of the welds seamlessly.  On April 27, I'll be headed to the foundry to "check the metal." I'll go over everything and circles any areas that I feel need attention.

PATINA: After approval the final step is the patina.  Pictures soon to come.

Mold making- John goes to pieces.

These last few weeks have been very busy, here in the studio and then at the foundry. You saw how we were cutting up John in various sections. Now it is time to make a mold. Each section has a seam,  or seams. Then rubber is painted over the entire piece, section by section.  After 4 layers of rubber, plaster has been added. This is all a part of the foundry process.  The final rubber molds are cleaned and sent to the foundry. 

The mold making process- John goes to pieces.

Anyone unfamiliar with the bronze casting process pretty much freaks out when they see this part. We go to great lengths to get the sculpture prefect and then we have to cut it up all over again. How do I do that? With a reciprocating saw, knives and anything I can.  The many pieces are seamed up using playing cards. Some things like the dog, I will cut apart later. We did the mold of the top of the dog, flipped him and this allowed me to add detail on his belly without standing on my head to do it.  The mold making process is a long one. Usually t he foundry does this process, but here at B. Mongeon Sculpture Designs Studios we do it ourselves.  

Approval of the sculpture.

Sherrie walks into the studio and sees John for the first time. 

This is the halfway point of this process. I know it feels like we have done a lot with the sculpture already. The milestone comes with the approval. I love when a client comes to the studio and sees a sculpture for the first time.  There was a bit of work that we did on the sculpture of John after this point, and the dog changed considerably, but overall it was a great approval process.  The client was pleased and we are on to the next part of the process.  The mold making of John and his dog.

It is a bit to take in. Linda walked out a few times and felt that
John was standing there when she walked back in. 

Moving forward- the dog

The difficulty about creating a blog that documents the progress of a sculpture is that when you are knee deep in creating the sculpture you have very little time for blogging. So here we go, backdating some of these posts and letting you know the progress.

You can never have enough reference. It is something I say often in my life as a sculptor.  I spent hours learning about seeing eye dogs, talking to the Seeing Eye in New Jersey, watching video of how a dog walks. I studied the anatomy of a walking dog and reviewed many movies.  There were changes and modifications that we made after approval and I pulled the love of dogs, the love of some specific dogs and the love for seeing eye dogs into one clay sculpture that would be made into a bronze.  This was no easy task.  This dog probably had a little of my own love and loss. While creating it my family suffered a horrible tragedy. My daughter and son in law's house burned down and their family dog, Sam was lost. Sam was a rescue dog that I fostered for years before they adopted her. So as I labored over this dog, I thought about Sam.  Lots of love went into this dog. Here are some photographs of the progress of creating John's dog.

You can never have enough reference. Along with these I had
about 10 movies of walking dogs. 

Adding the dog to the scene was not an easy task. Often
sculpting means a little bit of acrobatics.  

Carve, add clay, step back, crawl on the floor, look at reference,
carve, add clay, step back cut something off, move it, add clay.
This is what I do all day long. 

Just as I moved around John, I moved around
the dog, adding clay, carving foam, moving
limbs. This is my sculptor's dance. 

Much to do.  And remember the harness
and John's hand must line up.  

Off with his/her head.  After crawling around
on the floor, it feel good to sit in a chair and work. 

John- bringing John to life in clay

John has gone through a great deal of transformation. If you remember we had just received the foam armature of John in December.  Here is some transitional photographs showing the process. This shows just a glimpse into the many, many hours of creating before approval of a sculpture. If you want to see the final results of the John Turner sculpture in clay be sure to check out the approval blog post.

First I carve the foam carving it to the right design.
Slowly I move around and down John. The foam
is covered with a foundry wax and a layer of clay.
A base coat is added and then thicker layers.

Slowly we move down the body. Working with
folds and capturing movement is the goal. Still,
there are other elements that we must add that
play a part in the scene. John's hands are pivotal.
the right is holding a brief case, and the left
the harness.  The position of these additional
elements may change the arms and the folds.
The brief case is much to heavy to put on him.
it would break his hand and arm. Putting these
elements together will take a lot of time and
consideration.

The other element that is important is
of course the dog.  We juggle trying to have the
room to work on John, and needing the
interaction with the dog. 

Off with his head! No, this is not just something from my
previous Alice project. It is something I do with all of my
sculptures. It is easier to flip his head around and see
what is needed. I'll can easily attach his head back to the body.
I'll do this many times. I also like having both printed photos
and photos on my computer. I can zoom in on these.

A visitor. My granddaughter plays with play dough and
watches tv while gamma works. 

The energy in this next part is incredible.

Moving on to the next part of this project. The foam does not look like much now. Poor pooch. It will soon be an amalgamation of the look, and energy of 8 seeing eye dogs. The creative energy on this part of the project nearly has me jumping out of my skin. Here is to...
1. Villa November 21,1953
2. Inky February 15, 1964
3. Pepper May 1, 1977
4. Gordy April 7, 1979
5. Steffie January 4,1989
6. Corinne September 20,1993
7. Robyn March 29, 2003
8. Eben May 23, 2014

So excited to get started on this part.

I can feel the dogs. They have been haning in the studio for months waiting patiently for their turn.  I can also feel their love and commitment.  What they have done, what they have provided. This is such an honor. 

Keep watching. 

Some relatives posted :

"Hope this all goes well. I'm very excited. Each of those special dogs has been important in our lives beyond comprehension. They were unique, brilliant, loyal individuals. You've got a lot of greatness to work with!"