Sculpture blog — Metal design

I was inspired while watching The Great Pottery Throwdown to make a picture of the Gladstone Pottery Museum where the series is filmed, with the iconic bottle kilns that Stoke-on-Trent is famous for. The picture is all copper. Flame coloured on the kilns and buildings and alcohol ink on the copper sheet background.    I’ve also made a piece with copper butterflies painted with alcohol ink that I call ‘The Great Escape’ as one butterfly is outside the frame representing that it’s either escaped or hasn’t yet been pinned to the board. It’s up to the viewer to decide.   ...

It’s been a while since I’ve updated the blog, but just a quick one to say I’ve been accepted for the “Art in the Pen“ art and craft fair in Skipton in August. I don’t do many craft fairs but I went to this one as a visitor last year and thought it was excellent with a really high calibre of exhibitors, which is why I applied. In preparation for this I’ve been making lots of new wall hangings using copper with wood backgrounds. I’ve also been using alcohol ink and pyrography so lots of different things will be available...

I thought I would show one of my creative processes from design to finished copper sculpture. I don't always sketch ideas as sometimes I work purely by sight and cut the copper to suit, but in this case I made a couple of rough sketches first to get an idea of how the finished sculpture would look. Now although there doesn't look a lot to it, small items like this copper dragon can be hard to make when brazing. If the heat is applied for too long in one area, it can lead to melting the previous braze used to...