This is the back of the Lion sculpture.  The left side as been beveled, I plan to also bevel the right side as well as increasing the angle on the top of the stone so that more rainwater runs off the back of the piece rather than the front and sides. 

Rain is running down the side of the piece and along the leg (which I don't want)/  The dark area around the Lion's elbow is where rain has run down the sculpture and has frozen there.  By diverting more rainwater to the back of the piece I hope to eliminate much rain coming down in this area.

I need to define the inside of the foot and deepen the shadow between the leg and body.

The ears and muzzle need more refinement.

This photo shows how the deep cut I made around the Lion to separate it from the ledge above also diverts rain water around the sculpture.  The streaking on the ledge was caused by rain washing off the dust from the top of the stone.  Before I made the cut around the lion rain would leave streaks across the body of the Lion.  Not anymore.   Pretty neat.

I just got a casting of "Flight" back from Art Castings Foundry in Loveland Colorado.  I plan on doing a 12 foot tall version some day.  This will be your view as you walk up to it.

Ely was accepted in the National Sculpture Society's Group show at Naples Botanical Gardens in Naples Florida. 

Bubbles in ice.

A break from the Lion, mentally and physically

The American Lion will not be going to Alaska until later this year so I decided to take a break from it mentally as well as physically.  I like to take a mental break from a sculpture(if I can) so I can come back to it with "fresh eyes". Then any mistake really jumps out at me.  I use a mirror a lot while working to get a fresh view of a piece I'm working on, but time and especially turning your mind to something else entirely helps a lot.  This photo of me was taken with a Trail camera - more about that at the end of the post....

To mentally clear my palate I decided to go into a figurative piece I started working on a few years ago.  The pieces name is Conversation.  This is the upper 1/3 of a young woman lying on the ground.  Plants will make up her midsection and there will be stone legs from the knee to feet.
At this point she is fairly clunky and everything is heavy, face, arms, hair, hands.

There are many things wrong with the piece, mistakes I have made along the way that I will now be correcting.  The main problem is that the face is too far out from the hairline.  In the photos below I am refining forms and trying to reduce the heaviness of the face.

I have gotten the forehead back but the brows are now too prominent.  I have started to define the shoulders and hands.

I have taken the brows back but the lips are way too full and the chin is a bit heavy.  The face still needs a lot of refining though it is better than when I started out.

This is a piece I have also been working on (mainly on rainy days) though I can't find the early photos showing  the armature and early stages of adding clay.  I might have accidently picked them up with other photos and put them in a folder.  They'll turn up eventually.

The armature is galvanized pipe I bought from JBB which has an extensive selection of plumbing pipe and fittings.  The pipe I used for this sculpture is fairly small (I believe it is 3/8") and they ordered it especially for me.  The pipe runs through his back and goes out to each hip and each shoulder. A section of pipe runs halfway down each forearm and half way down each upper leg.  I am using hard castilene over the pipe frame and it works wonderfully.  It is as hard as wax and so there is no need for an armature in the lower arms and lower legs.  I work the castilene with a heat gun.

What is this little boy doing?  You'll just have to wait and see....

Another project I have been working on is a time lapse video of me working on the Lion.  I have uploaded two sections (number 1 and 5 of 8) see them here -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zunMiP9WNCw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWYwlE1AwIk