The one foot and part of the lower leg to it are all that need to be finished now, with the rest of the model only needing some additional refinement and cleaning up which is done as the clay begins to firm up during the drying-out process.

I didn’t do very much on this model today but I did a little bit of refinement of it, the abstractness of this is a bit different to me, and the low relief makes it a little more complicated to get right because the various levels of the surfaces are very subtle and they don’t vary very much, making more use of outlines and angles to delineate the shapes and forms more than any projection. A little further refinement today on this should be evident. And today as well

I decided to dig out some model ideas I had stored away in a folder, and as I went through the photos I came upon a couple which I wanted to do a couple of years ago but didn’t pursue. The photos were of the 1927 Chanin building and I decided to look for more information on the building last night. I learned there are 8 panels in the 2 lobbies, of which I very much liked 3 panels, here is a picture of one of them. I like what I call the “Atlas” look, or as some articles refer to these as; “hyper-masculine” style of these kinds of figures…

I have a client who wanted a different lion I have, the large cornice lion from the YMCA building in NJ, but the mold is in pretty poor shape and I don’t plan to replace it any time soon since it was never much of a seller. So I sent a photo of this other lion I have which is slightly smaller, and a nicer face, and he would like 2 cast in concrete. I am working now on making the mold for this He is about 14″ square.

Now Ive begin the supporting shell for this, it will be in several pieces, each piece acts as a relief for various undercuts and opposing angled surfaces. Multiple smaller pieces make it easier to take apart too. Here’s a successive series showing how it’s made, with the last photo removing the rubber portion from the model;

Now that I’m done with the winged lion for the time being, it’s time to turn towards finishing the mold for the lioness roundel which I intend to complete today. The rubber portion has already been done, next comes the plaster shell. The first public cast is already pre-sold and paid for by a previous client who purchased the wolf head roundel some time back. I’m inclined now to start a lion model facing the opposite direction so there will be a pair. As I remember i have about 150# of the red clay, and about half a ton of the raku clay on hand. It would be a good…

Now that the lion is finally mostly dry except for the base which gave me a bit of trouble all along, I hoisted him up carefully to insert a couple of blocks to rest it on so the bottom of the base can dry out better. The base was originally built up on top of a sheet of safety glass on top of the plywood to keep the moisture from warping the plywood. But unfortunately the glass prevented moisture from drying out of the bottom, which resulted in it drying mostly from the top and sides, and that started causing the slab to want to warp upwards and crack. As…

The modelling of this is pretty much finished, at least what would be visible in photos like this. That leaves the surface cleanup and refining the small details as to what is left to do. I may still add the lettering the originals had, i.e “MERCHANTS NATIONAL BANK 1914” to the face of the shield, but this would have to be done with incized lettering rather than raised as the originals had. I believe the original master models’ lettering may have been metal, wax or wood founders’ letters applied onto the surface of the clay, and while the model was still damp they made the mold of him.

After a few changes and tweeks to the face I’m a lot happier with it, I also started the wings. I hope to have this substantially finished this weekend for the majority of the add-on and subtractive work, leaving the finishing detailing and surface detailing as the bulk of what is left to do. This tops out right about 825 pounds and the photo just doesn’t give the sense of just how big this is.