Arting Around

Several years ago, I had to cast two works in metal for a sculpture class. I'd already done a bronze casting (see Lost Wax and a Bronze Barbie), so I thought I'd change things up and preserve a pair of old hiking boots in aluminum. However, to use the lost wax process I'd employed for my bronze, I needed a WAX REPLICA of each boot !!

Under the guidance of sculpture professor Roger Columbik, here's how I turned canvas hiking boots to wax . . .

         

1. First of all, it was part of my bright idea to cast only the main body of each boot into aluminum – then, glue the original rubber sole, brand labels, and hardware to the finished metal version of each. Thus, my first order of business was to painstakingly remove these items from each shoe.
2. Next, I created a clay collar along the now-soleless base of each shoe – inset a little from its outer edge (as you can see in the top thumbnail of the first image above) – and used these collars to affix each shoe to a wooden board.

3. I partially filled each boot with newspaper and a thin coating of clay – creating something akin to the base of a bowl just below the tongue of each boot. (This hidden bowl is shown left in a finished boot. In the cast boots, everything below this "false bottom" is hollow.)
4. I applied several coats of varnish to each boot until it was as stiff as the board it sat upon; then, covered each one in saran wrap.
5. Using a rolling pin like device, I rolled sheets of clay like pastry into 1/4 inch thicknesses; then, cut them into workable pieces to lay across the shoes like blankets, molding each piece to the basic form of the shoe. (The saran wrap kept the clay blankets from adhering to the material of the shoes.)
6. Using a long thin strip of the clay, I built a flange (or lip) over the center and across the tongue of each shoe (shown in "Clay Blanket" thumbnail above). At the apex of this flange, I placed an additional plug of clay, which I'll explain in a moment.
7. When the clay dried, I coated one side of each shoe with plaster of paris up to the clay flange and let it dry.
8. Removing the clay flange, I coated the flange-edge of the first dried plaster section with vaseline. Then, I applied plaster to the other half of each shoe until it met the vaselined edge of the first section. (I had to be careful that the new section met, but, didn't adhere to the first section – so, I could crack open and slide the two sides of the molds off of each shoe as necessary. I also had to ensure that the plaster went around, and not over, the clay plugs – which would later provide needed openings into each of the plaster molds.)
9. I took the two finished sections of plaster mold off of each boot, removed the clay blankets and saran wrap – then, replaced the molds on the boots, using melted wax to secure each plaster pair to itself and to its wooden board. (The area that had once held the clay blanket was now an empty layer of space between the inside of the plaster mold, and the outside of each shoe.)
10. I sprayed the shoes and the inside of the plaster molds with a releasing agent; then, used a funnel to pour rubber mold mixture into the hole where the clay plug had been, filling the empty space between the shoe and the plaster with the liquid rubber.
11. When the rubber gelled, I removed the outer plaster mold, and the inner rubber mold, from each shoe. I was at last ready to create my wax models!!
12. I re-inserted the rubber molds into the plaster molds to steady them for the next step (tying the plaster sections back together with rope).
13. Turning each plaster/rubber-mold-unit upside down, I sprayed it again with releasing agent – then, carefully drizzled a coating of wax into each mold, swishing it around to form a thin but solid layer (just like making a hollow piece of chocolate candy).
14. Removing the rubber molds revealed two perfect wax replicas of my beat-up old hiking boots – with all the characteristic seams, folds, scars and textures of the originals!!!
15. All I had to do now was sacrifice these hardwon temporary works to the remainder of the casting process – which, from this point forward, followed the exact same steps used from the get-go to create Suburban Odalisique.

Click HERE to visit my art site and view more work.

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Ever wonder what sculptors mean when they use the term "lost wax"? Below are highlights of the lost wax process I used to create a small bronze piece called Suburban Odalisque (see historical art references).

       

1. First, I sculpted the wax figure, and attached hollow tubes (called "gates") and a cup-like structure to the bottom of the work.
   
2. Then, I dipped it into a liquid mixture called "ceramic shell," followed by a sand bath. When the shell had air-hardened, I set the coated statue at an angle and blow-torched it to melt all the wax – which then ran out through the tubes and cup, leaving the ceramic shell empty. In other words, I LOST the WAX!
   
3. Next, the empty ceramic shell was kiln-hardened to withstand the molten bronze that was then poured (via the cup and tubes) into the space previously occupied by the lost wax.
   
4. Once the bronze had cooled and hardened, I hammered and whacked at it until the finished statue emerged.

The Chair and the Bathing Suit

I found instructions for building a full-size lawn chair/lounger on the Internet, then, just made everything really small. I actually built the chair first, then covered it with saran wrap so I could sculpt the wax against it – insuring that the finished figure would lie perfectly in the chair. When the bronze version was done, at the suggestion of my husband, I added a reinforcing strip to the back of the chair (shown in the last picture above) to better support the dense weight of the finished work.

I made the spandex bathing suit from my own pattern, and sewed it right onto the figure – a surprisingly difficult operation, thanks to the tiny size of the model coupled with its extraordinary weight. She's so-o-o-o-o heavy!

Click HERE to visit my art site and view more work.

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