Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Smaller wax bishop's cross


I'm finally done this wax model, maybe mostly. I took days longer than I expected. I thought it would be easy, having carved this design before in a larger size. But when I reduced the size I blithely changed some of the side-view proportions, which opened up some new expressive possibilities, which led to lots of rethinking. I'm not good at leaving well-enough alone. 

This wax is tricky stuff for me to photograph, because it's shiny and irregularly translucent. The different colors are different consistencies of wax. The blue is flexible and hard to break. I carved the basic shape out of blue wax. I then made some corrections with molten green wax, which flows better than the blue when melted. I put in final details with a purple wax that flows beautifully and takes details easily, but is also easy to break.

From here we go to the silversmith, who will create multiple castings.

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