The 100 Day Project

I have joined a group of artists that are participating in a community wide 100 Day Project. The concept in a nutshell is to decide on a practice and do it every day for 100 days. I have chosen to learn to carve wax for lost wax casting. In 2013, we got the casting studio nearly set up and the final step is to get electric ran for the kiln, which is happening at the end of the month! I am really excited for the potential of having the production casting studio set up. Truth be told, I was very apprehensive about starting the 100 Day Project, it is a big commitment. I managed to scrape the ambition together and started. I will admit that I missed a couple of days right away, but heck I can just move forward and forget about that. Here are my first attempts at wax carving, I know my skill will improve over time. 

 

Day 1.

Day 2.

I was a little more prepared, I brought home some blue carving wax from my shop.  I know that I can get more crisp detail in the blue wax, but it is so much harder that I had a hard time really getting anywhere at all.  I think that I need to bring home a few more carving tools, or do some carving at the shop with burs and my flex shaft.  The result, I like this picture below is prettier than the wax carving, which is generally a little blob with no real definition.  I learned better ways to remove larger chunks of material using leverage.  This is the learning process. =)

Day 3 & 4

Well, Day 3 & 4 were the ones I missed.  So be it, now we move on to day 5!

Day 5.

I like day 5's leaf carving the best so far.  I was trying to achieve a popular chevron motif without letting go of the nature influence.  The final result, well I like it. I am liking carving the softer candle wax better than the hard wax, maybe it is a little more forgiving in some ways.