Is it a Bird ...?

"... stylish, elegant, and bespoke metalwork ..."

<< Blog; 7th April 2018 >>


Well this one's a bit of a change of direction! I've always been fascinated by the palette of colours that the various copper alloys such as bronze or cupronickel have to offer and have recently added lost wax or "cire perdue" casting to my repertoire. I've got to say I'm really rather happy with the results. I particularly like the tactile feel and look of polished, smooth and volumous shapes; these stylised bird sculptures have a wonderful feel to the hand ...and I just love the colours and finish! Some more picture of finished birds can be seen on this page.

That said, there was a rather large helping of serendipity involved in the making of one of these little tweeters. Pure copper is notoriously difficult to cast and one of my earlier attempts almost almost came out perfect. Everything except the head that is! A little judicious work with a grinder and a second cast of aluminium bronze (the gold coloured metal) onto the pruned copper bird solved the problem. It's my favourite.

Copper bronze and cupronickel stylised bird sculptures
The larger sculptures are 120mm long and weigh 700 grammes