A very good friend and collector of my work commissioned me to sculpt an Elephant. What an adventure this has been.
Watch the video of the work in progress here
He asked that the animal should not be displayed in an aggressive pose and that the animal be alert without anger but to nevertheless portray the power of the beast. I decided to take a wax production of an Elephant I had sculpted some time ago and modify it to achieve a posture of power without the aggression, thereby enabling the client to be involved in the process before proceeding with the final enlarged product.
The moquette
Having completed the modification of the moquette in wax I realized that I had in fact created what I think is the best depiction of an Elephant bull carrying large ivory that I have done to date.
I decided to build the animal out of ply board, metal, wood and Styrofoam to save on the cost of pointing up. I could have and should have sent the wax moquette to Colorado to be pointed up to the exact shoulder height of 48” as per the client’s request and then I would apply the clay and sculpt and texture the piece as I have done before with other enlarged sculptures. Anyway, I didn’t and let’s just say that the process has been very exacting, very interesting and very long to say nothing of being physically exhausting. And for those of you know me well, you can imagine how ‘colorful’ my language has been from time to time.
The Styrofoam is poured as a liquid into makeshift molds of plastic bags around the wood and metal skeleton and then cut and shaved with sanding tools, serrated kitchen knives, wood saws and a chainsaw while eyeballing the moquette to get the desired pose.
The moquette will be caste into bronze and if you are interested please let me know and the large sculpture has an edition of 3 per kind favor of the friend that commissioned it and likewise if you are interested please contact me.
Hi John,
Reaching out to you and Di.
Feeling a little guilty as I do believe I owe you a few cold ones, if you care to get in touch to see what can be done about that, it would be good to catch up with yourself and your good wife.
Im doing an occasional bronze now and have been admiring your work.