Now I have the first hand-pressed red terracotta architectural leaf blocks done and ready to start drying, this will shrink somewhat and I have not priced these yet, but pretty soon I will know the exact size it will wind up, and a price determined. These would be very nice for accents or even in a row as a frieze band, they will be kiln fired, so they can be embedded into a brick or stone wall, or otherwise used outdoors. A timelapse video showing how these are made;
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Leaf block mold for hand-pressed red terracotta
I decided to make a mold of one of these ca 1880 leaf blocks that came from a frieze band on a mansion in Newark NJ that was demolished. It’s a nice little design and it will be quick and easy to make these in red terracotta like the original. Now it will have to dry out for a couple of weeks before I can use it. This is exactly what they used in ca 1880 to make the originals, though it was about 5-10% larger. The design could be a styled boxelder tree leaf, there’s not a lot of trees that have leaves like the terracotta block has,…
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Washington Irving Louis Sullivan Sullivanesque pier capital model progress
Working now on final cleaning up, detailing and refining, I haven’t had time to work on it the last couple of weeks as other projects and things needed my attention. I expect it will take quite a few more hours to finally get this done, the clay is getting firmer despite misting it with water and keeping it covered with plastic, so it needs to be finished as soon as I can get it done!
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Washington Irving school, Hammond Indiana W1 pier capital model progress
This complex design will take a while to finish! Here’s where the progress is now.
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James W Scoville building terracotta
This James W Scoville building Elmslie “Sullivanesque” sculpture is now out of the kiln, it is still about 200 degrees and had to be handled with gloves, it turned out perfect! One can see the color change in photos from the previous dry/unfired state and now that it’s been fired to a little over 2,079 degrees, actually cone 2 tipped because I added a 15 minute “hold” at the set temperature, but because of the “heat work” it went a little higher, but the result is better and the color is nice and even top to bottom, whereas in the past the very bottom of large pieces like this would…
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The Jamws W Scoville Elmslie Sullivanesque panel kiln firing
After 4 weeks of drying I placed the pressed clay Chicago James Scoville building “Sullivanesque” panel in the kiln and turned ‘er on. I changed the program on the controller slightly for this piece by bumping the temperature up and adding 10 minutes soak time to when the kiln reaches that temperature. About 37 hours from now the kiln will shut off and take half a day to cool down before I see what I get. Meanwhile, here it is sitting in the kiln when I turned it on. The light yellow colored deals touching the back of the panel are shelf posts and I placed them on both front…
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Added two red terracotta artifacts to my collection
I bought 2 of these red terracotta blocks that came from a building in Newark NJ, these would date back to the 1880s. No identification marking, numbers or anything on them as is typical of these pieces in that decade. The design has no undercuts at all, is very smooth, and sharp crisp edges and corners which indicates to me that the original pattern was probably carved wood and the mold taken directly from it. The same leaf design sans the specific angled border around the perimeter of these 7-1/2″ square designs may have been incorporated in cast iron elements too as a foundry pattern since wood carvings were typically…
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James W Scoville, George Elmsley/Sullivanesque design first pressed clay
The first hand-pressed clay sculpture is finished and drying now before it can be kiln fired. Once this is fired in the kiln I will have an exact size and weight and a firm price for these signed, numbered and dated works reproducing this historic George Grant Elmslie/Louis Sullivan 1884 Chicago design featuring a styled webbed lotus. The design is an early work by these men and it dates to the foundation of what has become known as the “Sullivanesque” style of architectural ornament. The James W Scoville building was demolished in the 1970s, many of the original artifacts were salvaged, most are in private collections while a few…
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Washington Irving school Hammond Indiana pier capital model progress
The model is coming along slowly but surely, below is an updated now 5 minute long time-lapse video of sculpting the original master model.
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Washington Irving school, Hammond Indiana W1 pier capital model
The model is coming along nicely, it’s a pretty complex design that requires a lot of planning, but as I rough out the details in the clay there will be more time-lapse videos and photos.