What is not to celebrate about this smaller sculptural piece (about 60cm wide X 55cm high) - hand formed recycled copper leaves, copper patina and rust on half of an old pulley wheel. See fully assembled piece below with a hard wood base.
The leaves are riveted to the mild steel stalks or stems with copper rivets - yes the stems will rust in the outdoors.
Couple of other process photos on the workbench.
And a photo at the front door in blazing sunlight.
A lovely addition to the Bending Series.
I asked Fiona if she would assist me in bending some curves into the large leaf forms that will become a wall mounted sculptural pieces. Little did she know that assistance would require her bending the Corten steel leaf around a log - see above. A fairly low tech approach!!!!
I chose the log below as the diameter of the log would result in larger and gentler curves; and it was big and heavy enough to hold the leaf form stable.
Another photo of the log in action.
The stem of one of the leaf forms needed a bit more of a curve - so why not use a piece of pipe in the vise.
Stacking the curved leaves as we worked - it also gave us the chance to compare the bending.
Then out on the concrete to check the forms - nice shadows as well.
After a couple of tweaks the metal was given a good sand to get rid of hand oil and then put out to cure - aka rust.
After a shower of rain overnight the rusting process has begun.
A sheet of Corten steel I ordered about 4 weeks ago was finally delivered on Tuesday - see below - the sheet is 2.4m long and 1.2m wide.
I was able to start the process of sketching the three large leaf forms in the concept drawing below onto the sheet of steel.
.jpeg)
The first of the leaf forms dropped out after quite a bit of work with the side grinder - see opening photo.
Some process photos follow. Sketching the shapes on the steel.
Cutting with the side grinder. I used quite a few half used disks I had saved as they can be manoeuvred around corners better when cutting out leaf forms - but as the third photo shows I was left with lots of unusable bits.
The three leaf forms. The longest leaf form is 1.8m long and .4m wide.
The negative spaces in the steel.
The next tasks include: cutting the surplus off the sheet to allow the negative spaces to be a sculptural piece in its own right; grind all the rough edges off the leaf forms and leaf form negative spaces; and bend the leaf forms to create a 3D form.
A good outcome today in that I got 15 larger patinated copper leaves riveted to their aluminium stems. I'm making one set of 9 on 60cm stems; and two sets of 3 on 40cm stems. The set of larger leaves on the 60cm stems are pictured above.
A couple of process photos follow including photos of the more pointy tops of the stems where they are riveted to the leaves; and gently rounded base to make it reasonably easy to push into the soil, gravel or grass when installing the sets.
Some photos of the finished sets on three.
To keep the workshop a bit tidier I have hung the four leaf related sculptures on the wire mesh.
A good sense of achievement for Friday.
I cut out leaf forms for a garden sculpture about a week ago; and was left with gorgeous negative space leaf forms. Initially these were going to be ground and polished and left pretty much as the were. Fiona suggested they deserved more work - including cutting off the heavy excess metal and leaving a lighter form as you can see in the photo above. Quite a bit of cutting, grinding and polishing was required - but as you can see below the difference is worth it.
Having finished the forms the question is - should the negative space be backed with something like copper, copper patina, greyed timber, rust - or should it be left so that one can have leaves growing through them or at least behind them. Fiona's dad G turned up and joined the design discussion - he is of the view that there be no backing.
I had called Fiona over to the workshop to help me bend the leaf forms - getting some movement between the three. I could hold and bend the smallest leaf; but the other two required two sets of hands. I think we have achieved a good outcome.
We will sit with the negative space trio for now - they will tell us which way to go.
