It worked!

I about lost my mind in the few minutes it took to bake this, sure that something would go horribly wrong and it would explode or something. It's out of the oven and cooling now and my heartrate has dropped back down to normal. Just need to gild it, jewel it, and add feathers.

Lots of things I'd do differently, not least of which are a) not do a human figure and therefore a human face and b) make the whole thing quite a bit smaller. It rivals the turned table leg that is the base of my peacock fan for size. I'm sort of thinking I may need to get a few really big ostrich plumes to go with what I already have, but we'll see.

Come on silly thing, cool down so I can play!

More of the same

Another fan update. I'm always so tentative about doing ART projects rather than craft stuff so the going is slow. I did, in fact, put the forelegs with curled talons along the sides. I love how it looks, but it left a large chunk of open space between the braided border of the central medallion and the gryphon heads. Not sure what to put there yet. I tried a few things, including flourished seeblatter like on the bottom but it didn't work shapewise. I tried a different type of border around the central medallion as another option but it made the gryphons get really lost and the border became the star. Not really the look I'm going for.

I decided to move on and rough in the Amazon. Depending on what I do with her hair in the frog below the central medallion I think the upper might blend. Or maybe inspiration will hit and I'll have a brilliant idea for what to put into the empty space. Nothing worse than empty space.

I have decided I need to do something further with the Apres. It is a little squished anyway right now from getting knocked as I smoothed and worked with the back of the handle, but in general I think it is too cartoony in contrast to the gryphons. Maybe some muscle modelling will help. Not sure. It certainly needs something.

I'm playing around with adding some swarovski crystals in blue and considering some pearls as well so I set these on to see how it might look. It might be a bit over the top. But who knows. The entire project is a might bit crazy. I'm going to keep fiddling with it and see what happens. Hopefully it will be done in the next couple of days and I can pop into the oven.

Sculpting the fan

Lelio Orsi Design for fan handle 1526-87

 Via

I've been turning this idea over and over in my head, trying to figure out how to make it happen. I really want to take a step forward and do something more exciting than the turned wood, dowels, and pressed wood filigree I've done in the past.  I found several drawings of designs for Italian fans that are just shatteringly beautiful, including the one to the left that is in the British Museum. They were major luxury items at the time involving skill and a great deal of gold. I got the harebrained idea that I would cast one in pewter and then gold leaf it. That was a delusion of grandeur I'm afraid.  Loads of research on lost wax casting later, I have put that idea up on a shelf and decided to go with modern methods for now and learn to cast to that level of expertise later. I figure it will take a few years.

Sculpy wins again! Just like the zibellino masks, it is a quick and easier solution for not having a goldsmith in my pocket. I decided to use the basic layout of the Orsi fan and change the individual details to be more in line with my preferences. The figure is getting shifted to an Amazon, I'm adding my seeblatt, and the side grotesques are becoming gryphons. The central medallion is probably going to have my Apres. I'm not sure yet. it will really depend on how well the sculpting goes and what I can manage. I've got a wooden stir stick covered in a tin foil armature as my base and it's working so far. I'm liking the pieces I've sculpted on the bottom. Hope the rest goes as smoothly..