First sculpture for 2018

Over the past few weekends we spent some time here and there working on this arm. Karma sculpted, Riaan was the model. We used pottery clay, and it worked beautifully, with a wire reinforcement. The clay cracked a bit due to shrinkage, but it could have been worse, and we rushed the drying process deliberately. In future we will cut crack lines on all the corners of the reinforcement before we let it dry.

The idea is to cast in bronze. This is the perfect test run for an even larger bronze sculpture that's being cooked up.

Riaan cast the clay model in wax using a DIY craft silicone recipe as our suppliers have left the country (really sad news for us). The DIY silicone worked fairly well. For the wax Riaan mixed a something killer, using a mix of micro crystaline wax, parafine wax, and some oil pastels. The wax is nice and soft with a low melting temperature. After the wax cast we both spent time on refining the piece.

Here's how it turned out. It's now ready for the gating and investment.

Karma Bosman, Wax casting of the arm, 2018