The Birth Sculpture

Stolen Art No.5
The concept.
I wanted to make a wall hanging that is a three dimensional fantasy picture.
The sculpture must be interactive in as much that there has to be a function to it.
The function is defined to be wearable modern jewellery that has to be part of the sculpture and also be able to stand on it's own without the actual sculpture.
I see this sculpture in someone's living room.
He likes the sculpture and she wears the jewellery.
I like the idea that there is something extra in the sculpture.
I had already made the two little grubs for the Palindrome Cannon(link), but I discarded them and kept them in mind for a project like this.
Originally, my idea was to make a wall sculpture with a large dead insect and three grub type insect eating the dead one.
Then it changed to a large grub giving birth to many smaller grubs.

And eventually it changed to a large grub with art jewellery in it

More Jewelry Tutorials

Pendant video link

I drew out the basic shape for size and made the main body out of repousséd copper.
Like strips and stuff.
Working in copper is very nice, because it is pliable and deforms easily.

I had already made these bugs before I started this sculpture, and they fitted in precisely with the direction I wanted to go in.

Bashing metal.

I closed the abdomen up.

Just giving the body a brush finish to see what it will look like if it were polished.

Working on the sides.

Figuring out in what direction I want to go with the head.
I make things over plenty of times, because what seems like a good idea at the time looks crap when the 3 d thing is made. Often.

So this is the first edition of the head.

So now I got the head in a form, I need to work on the legs.
I like working my sculptures with all the components brought up to equal finishing stages.

So these legs are first carved in purple wax and then they are sand cast in the Delft Clay process.

This is a cast of the claws in brass.
Casting brass is quite tricky, because the zinc tends to boil and you got to bring the temperature of the metal up slowly, otherwise plenty of fumes.

Here is a picture of all the cast objects that I used in this construction.

I bent them and stuck them on with office putty.

Checking to see what the claws would look like.

So then I made an oval brass circle and soldered a frame into the oval circle.

I made a frame front.
So this will be the front that the glass will fit against.

I soldered a smaller frame onto the flat front frame so that when it closes, there is space for the 2 mm glass.

A rectangular box inside a oval box inside a oval thorax.

I am working on closing the sides of the oval box.

Looking a bit more tidy.
But I absolutely didn't like the head.

So I changed the head. I made a oval of brass.
Then I put all the auxiliary stuff around, to see the sort of look thing.

I carved the brass into a shape.
I use a flame shaped cross cut tungsten burr and the brass is machining brass, not cartridge brass.

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And then sort of being immersed into the sand casting thing, I went up a dead end.
I wanted to carve a face and sand cast it.

It was never going to work, looking at the pictures in retrospect.

I made a wood mold.
A sort of one time thing.

I cast one and it sucked.

So I drew out this design and cut two in mirror images out of 1 mm brass.

I dome them. So there is a central screw that holds the two domes together which I figured would be the eye attachment place.

I cut out two circles out of titanium and domed them.

I polished and heat blued it.

I added a tail and polished some of the pieces. I always polish everything.
Firstly, because I like it and secondly because it is easy to go from polish to matte.
The other way, not so easy.

Posing my toys.

I made a wooden back ground for the rectangular box in the oval box.

I made a catch for the lid of the rectangular box.

Open

Everything of Birth moving to pre final finish.

The head as well.

Then, in the rectangular box that is in the oval box, I made a rectangular silver box.
This was going to be the pendant.
So once I had the actual internal measurement of the pendant, I could figure out the size of the dragon fly that I wanted.

So I designed the dragonfly, then printed it , then glued the design to a plate of 18ct gold at about 0.7 mm thick and pierced it out.
Then I soldered the pierced out dragon fly onto the background.

I worked on the dragonfly more, because when you work in 18 carat gold, then the bench is dedicated to that, not other metals.
So the thorax has a white gold top soldered on.
The tail has been thickened and carved.

Being fitted.
I wanted her at sort of this angle.

I made a background plate out of titanium that fitted into the pendant.
It's 1 mm thick.

I heat coloured the background .
I use a 'Little Torch' with oxy/propane.

My idea was to have titanium trees that the dragon fly pendant was sitting in.
So I made the first tree out of 3 mm titanium plate.
Titanium plate is great fun piercing if you want to get rid of a lot of sharp blades.

I cut out two separate titanium trees and then made a silver cylinder for the tail to fit in.
The idea was that the dragonfly would be easy to remove when it was to be used as a pendant, but also when the big square silver pendant was being used, it would not fall of it easily.

When I put it in front of the titanium background, I absolutely did not like it.

So then I made a completely new titanium tree out of one piece, because two trees need four screws to affix, and a joined one needed two.

At the back of the trees is a slide lock also made out of titanium that holds the dragonfly pendant in place.

The silver pendant needs two chain holders.

I torch fire the dragonfly. Here I am using Thomson enamels.

The dragonfly lies on a titanium grid and there is a stainless steel foil strip under her actual body.

After firing.

The trees are held in place with a set of 2 mm screws made of unannealed silver and tapped into the base of the titanium.
The side branches are also attached to the body of the pendant.
The dragonfly just has to be slipped upwards to remove, but it needs a positive upwards push to release.

Fitted in Birth.

I set the dragon fly with some diamonds and Sandawana emeralds.

I wanted a largish stone in the top left, so for a long time I liked a color change CZ that I had cut before. Here it is green.

And here it is redish.
But in the end I went for a beautiful Bolivian amethyst I cut specially for the pendant.

Anyway, before all that I filed out a shape in the border and set 27 x 1 mm sandawana emeralds in them. Then I carved a gold and copper back ground.

The rear of the finished pendant.
I added a plate at the back where something could be engraved.
It is held in place with silver screws.

Final product.

The various components of the pendants.

On a mannequin.

I cut some iron hollow square tubing and made a frame like this.
The black background in just black paper for the while.

Her Grubs guard her.

I had to close the hollow tubing so I carved a purple wax model.

Sand cast it four times.

I cast one and it sucked.

This is one of the decorative screws that hide the mounting holes.
The frame has a key hole on each side at the back, so it drops onto two bolts that are affixed in the wall and then they are tightened down.

Experimenting with a white background.

The back just before spray painting.

There were two stainless steel threaded bars that ran through the side poles and four nuts like this one held everything together. I sand cast them.

I was messing around with various shapes for the background.

I was just about to glue the templates down when at the last minute I decided not to go with that design.

I went for this one instead.
The silver coloured back is zinc coated steel.

This was the configuration I eventually went with.

In a perfect world, I would like to have a set of led's that are charged by solar cell, to provide lighting from underneath.
So I went for out side lighting.

The background steel eventually was covered with several layers of urethane and sealer, first the actual pieces had to be attached to the steel.
I mostly did this with threaded holes in the piece and screwing them in from behind.

Because the pendant needed a chain, I needed a chain holder on the sculpture to hold the chain.
Here I am bashing a piece of copper to make the sides.

Then I soldered it on.

Fitted on in the bottom right corner.

I decorated the back border.

With a placer chain inside.

It had a glass window in the lid, so one can see which chain was inside.

Further more boutique pictures.
On a mannequin.
The dragon hanging as a pendant on a silver chain.

On the mannequin.

I like the effect of upward facing light.
Here I just strung some household ones I had just to see what it would look like and I am absolutely going to incorporate light into future sculptures.

Nice picture of the pendant if it was worn without the dragonfly