Making Your Art Foundry-Friendly
We often get artwork that is difficult,
but never
impossible, to put through the bronze casting process.
There are a few simple things an artist can do to make the process
easier, therefore less time consuming and less expensive.
To begin, choosing appropriate materials for the original art is
important and will vary depending on the desired result.
If the
artwork is simple and easy to make or if it is to be a
one-of, working directly in wax is an option.
This saves the cost of making a rubber mold as the wax can be invested in
ceramic shell and burned out. The problem with this is that if the metal
pour fails for some reason or you want many copies of the same thing you
must then re-create the artwork over and over for each bronze casting.
That is why we make rubber molds of artwork. With a rubber mold we
can make as many waxes as needed to fulfill the required number of
finished bronzes. You do the work once and we faithfully reproduce
it many times.
Making a rubber mold of original artwork made of stone wood or other
durable materials allows the artist to leverage the time spent creating
the original by making an edition of bronzes. These bronzes if
properly done have all of the original artwork's form and detail, down
to scratches and fine markings.
Another way to create bronze sculpture is to make a clay model on a
sturdy armature. This allows for relatively fast sculpting and
easy modification. A mold is then made of the clay model.
When choosing this method it is important to use a non-sulfur oil clay
because clay containing sulfur will react with the mold making materials
to shorten the life of the mold. The sturdy armature is important
so the clay model can be safely transported to the foundry without being
damaged.
Sometimes it is easier for a busy artist to make a small model known as
a
maquette, and let us enlarge it to the
desired size, then after artist approval we make a mold and continue the
bronze casting process. This way an artist can be more creative
and productive, we do all of the time consuming technical work you make
more sculpture.
For a consultation,
Contact Us
for more information.
Ed Sahagian-Allsopp
10-17-2008
