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Beautiful Dreamer Enlargement
November 11th, 2011 | Posted in Bronze | 
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Beautiful Dreamer Enlargement
Hi All,
After 11 months, I’m finally finished with the Beautiful Dreamer enlargement! Below are finished pics of her prior to casting her into bronze. She measures about 15″ tall by 15″ wide (40% larger than the original was) and she’s still delicate looking at that size.
* Discoloration on the face is due to adding a different color of clay but no worries, it won’t show up in the bronze (of course 
). *
First the pics and then below that will be comments about this whole process……
Note: Pics don’t show the hands, feet, and chaise’s legs because they were all removed and being molded. Stay tuned for the completed sculpture photos in bronze soon! 
The original sculpture back in 2006 took a year to sculpt in natural earth clay. (She was very small, being about 10 1/2″ tall without her granite base.) It was my very first serious sculpture and I put my heart and soul into her. Having her go into bronze was such an excitingly new experience. Getting to watch how the whole process works from molding to pouring the wax and on into seeing her in the golden bronze stage (wish she could have stayed that color as it looked like she was gold) and then watching the patina artist bring out the rich tones of the bronze and colored her dress burgundy was one of my best “firsts” in life.
The master metal fabricator at Artworks foundry, Joel, who had worked there 30 years, wanted me to inspect the work he had done on the first cast of her. I was such a newbie back then and really didn’t know what to even look for on the bronze. Joel bowed humbly to me when introduced (never had anyone do that to me before but I guess I could get used to it, ha, ha) and said it was an honor to work on my piece and to meet me. Then he said that in all his 30 years of working at that foundry, this was the finest piece he’d ever worked on, and the most difficult. He referred to it as “fine jewelry” as he hand polished the metal without using metal rotary tools because it might polish off her delicate anatomy and details. Knowing he’d worked on Richard MacDonald’s sculptures and many other famous sculptor’s work in that S.F. bay area foundry, I took it as a big compliment, and it encouraged me to continue on to do more sculpting/bronzes.
About 2 years ago, Joel got cancer and I called and thanked him once again for working on my piece. He was such a hard working and nice man. He passed away a few months later. That first bronze that he made for me is in my private collection as it has sentimental value because Joel worked on it and really cared for it, and it’s my first bronze baby!
As it turns out, I didn’t sculpt the original in such a way for her to be what they call “mold friendly,” (casts can easily be removed from the mold), and I added so much detail that she was extremely difficult for the foundry to get a good cast of her. Joel had it down to a science, though; he told me that he poured her at exactly 2050 degrees for the bronze. That was hot enough for the metal to flow into all the delicate areas of the dress and flowers. I learned that if he poured too hot then it would cause shrinkage because she was cast without a vent hole being cut out in her back.
In the end, the foundry-produced mold failed, that is, broke down and ripped only after a dozen or so wax pours. Don’t know for sure why that happend but I have an idea. (Could be because of using ultra-fast catalyst which allows mold rubber to cure more quickly but then become brittle in a short time). And the foundry had such a difficult time casting her so small anyway. By this time, I had been accepted to display at a very wonderful and beautiful gallery in Napa, that is, Quent Cordair Fine Art. (It’s such an honor to be among the many excellent artists in that gallery.) My Beautiful Dreamer fit so well the romantic realism of the gallery. I knew that I didn’t want to see her die, essentially, by not being able to reproduce her. She held a special spot in my heart, being my first bronze, and I knew what I needed to do, no matter how painful (money and time consuming) it might be.
I then contacted a 3-D printing company, won’t mention any names here, and they gave me a good price since we were having a downturn in the economy and they had time to do it. They said it would come to me all ready to mold, with all the crisp detail in tact. Well, I don’t want to belabor the point, but it came to me a disaster and my heart sank. I told my husband, “This is going to take me a hundred years to fix.” It really did in many ways but I won’t go into what all that involved(boring to most).
But all good things take time, and now is the time of celebration for me. I’m just about done with the mold of this enlargement and then off to the foundry the mold will go. I have a 2011 copyright on her as I was hoping to have one completed at least by Dec. 15th. We’ll see if I can get that to happen and not sacrifice quality in any way.
Her detail shows up so much more now in this larger size. I made her mold friendly by making sure that the deep undercuts of the original were filled in. Also, on the original, her dress actually had a fine fabric texture made by pressing real fabric onto the wet clay. That texture was impossible to reproduce in bronze if there might happen to be a pit that needed repaired (often does since metal casts aren’t perfect). With the enlargement, I gave a loose organic fabric texture that can be replicated by metal artisans if need be.
She lives! It’s all worth it because of having the final results turn out well.
One thing I’m really excited about trying with her is to make a clay edition of her, perhaps in porcelain. I can see her with real gold highlights here and there, maybe a rich burgundy glaze for her dress and glazes for her lounge. That will be my playtime and I can’t wait to do one! If one turns out well, then I’ll offer her as a clay edition as well as the bronze edition. I’ve never personally heard of anyone offering clay editions alongside bronze editions of the same sculpt, so maybe that’ll be a unique thing to set me apart from the large amount of bronze sculptors out there. Hope so anyway. Got to do what is needed to get noticed and be different and have my own style.
There is a very long thread on a forum back in 2005/06 that shows the original small edition size being sculpted from beginning (lump of clay) to end. It has comments by other artists and advice, etc., as I went along. If any of you would like to see that, please feel free to contact me and I’ll send you a link to it.
Thanks for listening and allowing me to tell you the behind the scenes story of why I made an enlargement of Beautiful Dreamer.
8 Responses to “Beautiful Dreamer Enlargement”
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Tamara, she’s GORGEOUS!!! And I do understand how the enlargement wouldn’t have the crisp detail you want. The machinery involved just can’t do that, as I learned with my life-size horse. I’m glad my experience wasn’t like yours! They’ve just done a bust for me – haven’t seen it yet, so I’m hoping for the best!!
15 inches isn’t that big to sculpt – why not build your pieces that size to start with (just curious)?
How did you do the details in her lounge? That’s AMAZING, seriously!
Did you know they can put gold on bronze? If you want gold someplace, talk to the foundry, they should be able to do it, or they should know a company that can do it for them.
Looking forward to seeing the finished sculpt!
Thanks!
Several companies gave me estimates and claimed the 3D printed sculpture come to me mold ready- (also my foundry told me about this type of enlargement service and that it was quite expensive but saves the sculptor time because the sculpt is ready to mold.)
After scanning the sculpture and doing touchups on a computer,they then have a detailed compturized 3D image of the sculpture. Then the enlargement company prints the sculpt out layer by layer with a Z Cor printing machine. They print using a powder and infiltrate it with water (and sometimes glue). The finished product looks a lot like plaster and can be sanded and polished if need be. The enlargement company is supposed to do touchups needed and send to the customer the piece all ready to go……
Well, I guess they have never scanned and printed something so detailed like mine, I guess.
http://deuxpan.com/3dprint.html
The orginal Beautiful Dreamer was sculpted 10 1/2″ tall but, actually, that was bigger than what I use to sculpt. My first sculptures were tiny, the heads being an inch tall. Talk about eye strain! So this was a step up from that. Since then, yes, I like to sculpt much larger as it’s much easier to do and a few other reasons.
Details of the lounge were done with painstaking effort.
Much of the diamond pattern was etched in with a combination of tools- razor blades and dental tools. The embroidery was applied with my secret method. 
I’ll fill you in later.
I do recall seeing some sculpts with gold application on them. I wonder how well it adheres. Thanks for the reminder about gold because I had forgotten it’s an option. For Dreamer, I’m going to keep her bronze patina the same as the small edition. But in my clay edition, she will have real gold on her, can’t wait!
Today I put the last coat of rubber on her and will start the mother molds tomorrow!
Thanks for your comments and stay tuned…..
We have several sculptures by Loet Vanderveen that were cast at Monteray (sp?) Bronze there in CA that have huge swaths of gold on them. We’ve had them for years and the gold is still pristine. His sculptures always have a stripe of gold, either down the length of the tail, or on the insides of the ears or someplace else. We have a horse sculpture of his and the whole neck (except for the front) and front of the face is all gold – it’s called the “Armored Horse.” You might check with that foundry – it isn’t too far from you, is it? I toured it when we were there and they do beautiful work. GORGEOUS patinas!! You can also send things to Red Sky Plating in Kansas and they will gold plate whatever you want, even if it’s part of something bigger. I sent some jewelry and had them gold plate just the manes on some pieces, and the whole piece on the other. They put on 100 microns of gold, which, if over sterling (as in my jewelry) results in “vermeil.”
Monterey is about 4 hours from here. I’ve been to that Monterey foundry too and that’s what I’ve hear as well, that they do excellent patinas, especially patinas on smooth pieces.
I’m going to have a look again at Loet’s work. Back when I looked at it before I was looking at the patinas and didn’t even notice the gold. I’ll have to see about that. Having a touch of gold would be neat to have. Thanks for your references etc. I appreciate it!
I do really smooth pieces myself in order to get gorgeous patinas. The patinas on Vanderveen’s work are spectacular, although they’re more opaque than I like on my work. (I have translucent patinas done on mine so the horses’ coats will glitter like they do in real life.) I can’t wait to see how your piece turns out!
Please see my promotion for her on this post: http://tamarabonet.com/blog/2011/11/17/beautiful-dreamer-promo/
Beautiful Dreamer is right Tamara!! All your pieces have a look of peace about them. I’m very happy for you that you can get them made into molds and have your dreams multiply! Very very nice! I’m going to go back and read the promotion and all the other things to read. Good job Tamara!
Love, beth
Ah thanks! Peace- yes, I guess some sculptors have high energy sculpture but I love to depict peace and quietness often times (but not always). Good to mix it up and try new things and styles too. Thanks for commenting, Beth!