Good Morning Mr. Sun By Richard Arfsten
Good Morning Mr. Sun - cast bronze. Good Morning Mr. Sun is a small bronze sculpture modeled loosely in the same way Degas did his small wax figures. He used them as maquettes to study shadows for his paintings. After he died they were cast into bronze.
Wax is hard to work with because it gets hard very fast. I pour molten wax into a pan of water which cools it fast. The idea is to splash a little water on the hot center so it cools a little but is still molten inside. Sort of like an egg that has been fried "over easy". You must have a wet hand or it will stick to you and burn you. The molten wax is over 300 degrees so you need to be mindful of what you are doing. You gently fold it and kneed it at the same time. You are trying to get a small ball in your hand and get it to the consistency of clay so you can model it as you apply little pea-size pieces to the form. It works great if you like to work loose, which I do. The best part is you do not need an armature because it gets very hard. The bad part is it also gets quite brittle. Drop it and you have a lot of pieces. Guess how I know that?
It has one or two redeeming qualities. If you work with two pans of water - one cold and one hot - and if the arm sets up and you need to move it, you can immerse it in the hot water for a while. It will soften a little and then you can bend it a little. Also if you are cheap and a gambler you can take it to the art foundry and they might try to cast it for you. The gamble is if it fails you cannot make another wax from the mold because you were too cheap to spend the money on building a mold. Even if you just want one copy it is an insurance policy.
I have always maintained there is no money in bronze sculpture. It costs way too much to make and people wonder why it costs more than the piece from China that there are 10,000 copies of. Think of making a custom car from scratch. The first one costs many fortunes. Make 100,000 and the price drops because each unit pays for some of the development costs.
Here is the bottom line. The first piece is fun to make, the second copy is work - and it is work that does not pay well. Richard needs to have fun to feel alive and making art makes me feel alive.
Sculpture size: 10"H x 3"W
Wax is hard to work with because it gets hard very fast. I pour molten wax into a pan of water which cools it fast. The idea is to splash a little water on the hot center so it cools a little but is still molten inside. Sort of like an egg that has been fried "over easy". You must have a wet hand or it will stick to you and burn you. The molten wax is over 300 degrees so you need to be mindful of what you are doing. You gently fold it and kneed it at the same time. You are trying to get a small ball in your hand and get it to the consistency of clay so you can model it as you apply little pea-size pieces to the form. It works great if you like to work loose, which I do. The best part is you do not need an armature because it gets very hard. The bad part is it also gets quite brittle. Drop it and you have a lot of pieces. Guess how I know that?
It has one or two redeeming qualities. If you work with two pans of water - one cold and one hot - and if the arm sets up and you need to move it, you can immerse it in the hot water for a while. It will soften a little and then you can bend it a little. Also if you are cheap and a gambler you can take it to the art foundry and they might try to cast it for you. The gamble is if it fails you cannot make another wax from the mold because you were too cheap to spend the money on building a mold. Even if you just want one copy it is an insurance policy.
I have always maintained there is no money in bronze sculpture. It costs way too much to make and people wonder why it costs more than the piece from China that there are 10,000 copies of. Think of making a custom car from scratch. The first one costs many fortunes. Make 100,000 and the price drops because each unit pays for some of the development costs.
Here is the bottom line. The first piece is fun to make, the second copy is work - and it is work that does not pay well. Richard needs to have fun to feel alive and making art makes me feel alive.
Sculpture size: 10"H x 3"W