wax and spruing process

The wax mold of the arm and other parts are removed out of the rubber molds. 

 the molds and wax copies are cleaned up and ready to be sprued.

 The arm and finger wax copies are going to be sprued together. I made the wax base with a plaster mold.

Sculpture Studio, time to shine.

A new semester, a new goal. This semester I am finally in sculpture studio! I now get to plan and create  a body of work that I choose! My body of work is about perception. I struggle with an autoimmune disease, and want to show the two sides of how the world views me and how I see myself. I am doing so, by casting body parts such as my first work, the hand and part of the arm. I am keeping the top of the hand and arm "normal" and making the palm side abstracted with bones and tendons etc. emphasized. I am utilizing a mirror to reflect the underside of the hand/arm as how I am reflected as normal to the world, but in actuality I see myself as the abstracted side, full of pain and hardships. 

the clay hand below is a small model of how my final piece will be reflected

first, I sculpt the work out of clay

Secondly, I cut the hand into three parts. The arm is cut off at the wrist, and the curling finger is cut off. Then, a wooden rod is drilled through the bottom of the whit board and the clay part is stuck into, as seen below. This is done to the hand as well.

Next, I place more wooden rods to connect the fingers to the board allowing for air bubbles to be released.

The mold making process is next

The arm is molded with a blanket mold, just as I had done the Buddha before.

The hand part is broken into three parts, and has rubber poured directly onto the clay.

The finger, after breaking the clay trying to mold the same way as the arm, is glued back together and hot glued to the bottom of a bucket with rubber poured on top.

You can see here the hand's mold how it is in three sections

Then, wax is poured into the cleaned out rubber molds the make a wax copy of all three parts.

/Users/melissarutherford/Desktop/melissa.band

Metal Fabrication project

Metal Fabrication project: 

I stared this project from a pen drawing I had done 

The plan was a 3'x6' final piece, using 1/4'' steel rods

I cut and bent the steel utilizing clamps to create half circles and circles in order to begin creating the skeleton structure

The process was very tedious, cutting bending, using props to balance each piece into place so that I could weld it onto the structure

After all the pieces were welded on the structure, I used the grinder to smooth out all the welding seams

The last step was color application, spray paint and acrylic

I greatly enjoyed making my creature come to life. The process is not over this summer I plan to cover the structure with plaster strips giving him body and them painting the creature to look more like my drawing.