Tag Archives: casting the bird

Casting the Bird is Back

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

A few days and many hours later, casting the bird is back on track. At least I think it is. My new plaster mold is cured, sealed, and I have put it to use. I cast Fat Baby Bird #16 very hastily late in the evening, and it was not well done. I did prove the mold is good, and I do have another bird that I will count to the edition, but …

Truth is I did a poor job of it. I did not mix enough cement, and I tried using a “slip” before filling. I should have pre-measured everything and had a good set up so I could work faster. RapidSet cement is true to its name. The product thickened quickly, and I ended up with several conspicuous voids in my cast.

I could certainly have patched and painted these so that no one would be the wiser. However I chose a different solution: Fat Baby Bird #16 is “Wounded Baby Bird”. I chose to make these voids more conspicuous rather than less so. Now Wounded Baby Bird is painted in raw Sienna with silver highlights, and the voids feature black or red glitter or gold paint. Here is #16 before and after full color.

Fat Baby Bird #15 sits pretty in front of my studio. With a vivid three tone paint job plus a silver beak, he/she is hard to miss. I will keep her/him right here in my yard for a bit:

So for now, #15 and #16 are happy enough here at the studio. But perhaps someone will want to take them to new homes soon. My baby bird adoption fee is a mere $200.

Casting the bird is back on track whenever numbers 17-25 are wanted. My limited edition will stop there.

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Casting the Bird

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

I sold the last finished, and favorite, Fat Baby Bird cement cast during Studio Tour this year. Two more Tour visitors expressed an interest, so I cast two more recently. Numbers 12 & 13 of the planned limited edition of 25 are sold. I sold Number 12 was sold to a Tour visitor after my follow up email, and then sold #13 to a new friend. I love this! Thank you art buyers!

This is great for me, but the problem came when I decided to try an epoxy resin cast. It has been far to long since I cast anything, and forgot some of the hazards and tricks! Resin will leak from the smallest crack.

My quick dry acrylic cement is pretty trouble free, but my glove mold has a 2 inch opening seam that did not fully contain the resin. The resulting cast is actually fine, although my blue resin Baby Bird is 1/2 inch shorter than my cement versions. The problem is that the resin leaked, then hardened on the plaster mother mold and the packing used to stabilize the cast. So I had to destroy that rigid support mold in order to extract my cast. This meant a lot of work and significant delay before I can make another cast!

My new mother mold is complete, but the plaster is not fully cured yet. Then I want to seal it with polyurethane before I use it. And although I do plan to make another resin Fat Baby Bird, I will take some precautions! Using cling wrap around the silicone mold might do the trick, along with ensuring the mother mold is very snug. It is also important to seat the silicone mold fully on the inside. Then I will hold my breath until the resin is cured, metaphorically speaking of course!

Casting in Resin

I really do love the blue resin Fat Baby Bird #14. The trick was to make it hollow, which allows more light to pass through. And when I place it on an LED base (at right) it really glows. I can place a translucent colored disk over the LEDs to give the bird a subtle hue at the bottom. I have tried yellow and purple paper so far; now I want to make a set of disks with more saturated colors for the purpose.

The image at right is an “artsy” photo of the remains of the plaster mother mold!

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Another Addition to the Edition of Fat Baby Birds

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

I have completed another addition to the edition of Fat Baby Birds: I have my newest fat baby bird painted and ready for a clear coat! Number 10 of the limited edition casts from my hand carved limestone bird is “Green Eyed Baby Bird”! Green Eyed Baby is very charming, in lighter subdued & variegated yellow and umber tones. She? or he? is a commissioned cast destined as a gift, and will be picked up by the new owner tomorrow or Friday.

I may still need to create a base for FBB #10, that has not yet been decided. For now, she just sits on her own two yellow “feet”.

I may need to make #11 very soon, as yet another addition to the edition of Fat Baby Birds. I would love to install one or more of these at some of the Larry Scott Trail parking lots!

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Painted Spring Plumage on Baby Birds

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

Two of three available fat baby birds: these are durable cement casts of my hand carved limestone fat baby bird. I will be keeping the original, my very first stone carving, but decided to make a mold from it. I don’t plan to make more than ten of these, if that many.

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First Fat Baby Bird Cast

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by
  • photo of cement cast fat baby bird
First cast is at left, second cast is featured in the right two photos

Here is my first Fat Baby Bird cast in cement. This is the first cement “pour” in my new mold, and this mold is fine! Unfortunately my casting was flawed; I did not mix enough cement, and with the RapidSet material mixed fairly thick for strength, the layers show. So this first cast is far from perfect, but good enough to prove the mold and to please me. After all I know that I can do better with the next one!

I rather love the air bubble that was trapped in the eye. This accidental void actually perfectly matches the personality of my quirky fat baby bird, and makes this first proof special. So a good several days work, I think. And I will make another fat baby bird cast today.

Time passes … and we have the second cast. This time I mixed enough material, BUT I used a slightly different mixture (RapidSet CementAll instead of the high strength Mortar Mix). This seems much harder to mix well: it was lumpy and since it sets so quickly, I get in a hurry mixing it. I fear there are weak spots in this cast, where there were unmixed dry lumps of cement! I don’t seem to have any trouble mixing the Mortar Mix, which has a larger grit sand, I think. The dry material did not seem lumpy, but perhaps I need to mix it more, or even sift it before adding water. That would be a big pain!

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