Post #762271 by swizzle on Mon, Apr 11, 2016 7:09 PM

Thanks Wendy. I have another in progress using the same technique with the bamboo as the one above. That should be finished soon.

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Well it's been a long time in the making but i've finally got around to making a new mug.

When i was in the U.S. last year this thread got a bump and instantly i fell in love with one of the carvings that Sven had posted and thought that it would make a great mug. But because of the shape of the original carving i had to change the proportions of it to make it more practical. There was no way i was going to make something that tall and skinny to drink from. What i did was print out the picture to the size (height) i wanted it and then with a ruler ran lines across from each point on the carving and then redrew the image wider but kept all the marker points in the position they belonged.

Here's the pic of the original carving i used alongside my master carving which i carved out of a block of hardwood i just bought from the hardware store.

Here's my carving showing the different sides.

And here are the first few castings of "Bombardier Ellistay".

The reason why i called him that is because in the thread with the link above, there seems to be no clear consensus on who actually carved the original, Andres Bumatay or his apprentice, Richard M. Ellis, so i decided a combination of both their names would be the way to go. The 'Bombardier' part i'm sure i have explained somewhere in my thread before.

Now unforunately there won't be very many of this mug made for two reasons.
1.) The mold did not work out as well as i had hoped so a lot of detail was lost which needs to be re-carved for each mug, which is very time consuming. And 2.) I've had a huge set back with the kiln. Basically the entire mains/circuit board to the house needs to be replaced in order to be able to have enough power to be able to run the kiln along with everything else in the house, and that is going to cost over $2,000, money i simply do not have.

I am able to use a friends kiln (he bisque fired all the stuff in this post for me) but that has its drawbacks. First, he doesn't live that close so i don't want to be constantly running back and forth and then second, transporting glazed bisque is a real nuisance, because even though the pieces will be wrapped up, any movement can cause the glaze to rub off which then means it needs to be brought back home again, touched up, and then transported back which leads to the possibilty of the problem happening all over again. It's so much easier being able to glaze a piece and then literally be able to put it straight into the kiln ready to fire.

The moai on the pieces below are another new sculpt of mine which had been sitting around for a while also. I had a couple of molds made of it when i had the mold made for my new mug above. I made it specifically to attach as 'feet' to the various bowls i have made before.

Here are four of them attached to my 'Brigardier VF1' bowl.

And here are three attached to a 'Lance Corporal Stoney' bowl. This will also have a volcano added to the centre, however i am a little concerned whether or not this piece will survive the glaze firing as i've already had an issue with one of the moai falling off. We'll see.

So it will still be a few weeks until these are finished as i have not only all those pictured to glaze but also a handful of some of my older designs. (It is much easier, and better management of time and kiln space, to pour several pieces at once as opposed to just one mug at a time. Also, if i'm going to be driving back and forth to my friends place picking stuff up, i may as well make each trip even more worth while by dropping off more stuff at the same time).

So there ya go. It's been long time in the making, and although it's still not completely finished, i thought i'd post some pics of where i'm at right now. That's it until i get some glazing done.

Cheers
swiz

[ Edited by: swizzle 2016-04-11 19:36 ]