Category: Birds

Heron #1

3/19/2017

I used most of my garage time this weekend to work on a bunch of different stuff to prepare for my upcoming (May) show. I fixed my rabbit's head, finally cut and attached plates on a stegosaurus that has been on the back burner for months, and cleaned, wire-wheeled, and clear-coated the rabbit and the triceratops head. I also managed to finish my heron.

This one seemed to go quickly and I'm fairly happy with the way it turned out. There are a few things I will do differently if I make another heron (I'm planning on selling this one). Here is the finished product without the final base and less the slight patina it will get by sitting outside for a while:

Heron #1.

This one started as a pile of pieces that seemed like they'd quickly go together to make the basic shape. As often happens, though, I ended up using relatively little of the stuff in my heron pile.

he big white triangles are shelf brackets. I originally thought they'd make good foundations for the wings. I ended up using one to help form the interior of the back. I used the tips of both to make the beak.

In this photo, the body is make from the motor from a juicer and a bell, neither of which I ended up using. I did use most of the neck and head pieces

To keep the weight down, I used the hood from a desk lamp (green), the shelf from a shower caddy, and some lightweight, circular pieces from a ceiling light to start building the body. I used the handles of butter knives (leftover from making the quarrelling roosters) to make the flight feathers. I formed the neck shape with a pair of metal brackets. The foundation of the head is some kind of spring-loaded clamp.

This photo shows the body after I added a couple of layers of metal (the lower one is made from old garden edging from my yard and the top one is sheet metal from a filing cabinet) to represent the wing features. The tail feathers are made from filing cabinet parts. I used a grill from an AC unit to make the stringy feathers that extend from the top of the back.

I made the neck almost entirely out of sheet metal, using little irregular pieces that I cut from a something that I'm sure must have originally been from Ikea.

This view shows the bird almost done. I used various odds and ends to give volume to the upper legs. The black semi-circles where the neck meets the body are from the base of a desk lamp. The black patch on the top of the head is from a lawnmower. I found the key plate that forms the center of the back in someone's garbage pile just a few days ago.

The finished head.

I added more sheet metal to give mid part of the neck the distinctive curvature of a heron neck. I used a mixture of bicycle spokes and the spring from a lawnmower starter to make the nuptial feathers on the neck.

One of the feet.

Top view.

"Rooster #1" Wins a Prize

3/18/2017

Last night I has happy to learn that my rooster sculpture was awarded an honorable mention at the local Trenholm Artists Guild show in Columbia.

I had never been to one of these shows before, so I didn't know what to expect. I was prepared to deliver at least a portion of the speech from Boogie Nights if I was handed a microphone. That didn't happen, so . . . no speech, no karate moves. Maybe next time.

Here is what the judge (Dwight Rose, out of Spartanburg, South Carolina) had to say about the rooster:

My rooster was the only sculpture in a field of canvas and photographs. It was gratifying to have my work recognized among so many nice pieces. It was a good feeling, also, to get a lot of of positive reaction from one of the scrap metal art groups I participate in on Facebook. In my estimation, most of the people who do this kind of thing are, like me, "folk" artists with no formal artistic training or background. If you look at Making something new out of a bunch of old nothing is fairly pure creativity. I like it, and I'm happy to be a part of it.

Owl #2

3/8/2017

Now that I've completed my second owl, it's evident that I will be making a third owl. There are parts of Owl #2 that I'm not particularly happy with, but the two look good together watching over our family room. Three is a better number than two, though. So I've already got a pile started for Owl #3.

I made Owl #2 more quickly than Owl #1 (sixteen hours for this one as opposed to about 25 hours for the first one). A couple of factors sped things up. First, after already making one owl, I had a somewhat accurate model of owl anatomy/proportions in my head. That meant less time spent looking at pictures and thinking about how things would go together. Second, I was determined not to spend a lot of time representing individual feathers. After the marathon of feather cutting/welding that went into the fighting roosters, I just wasn't in the mood.

Here is the final product:

Owl #2.

Here is a video that shows the owl from all sides:

I made most of Owl #2 while my wife had the kids out of town for the weekend. I spent the entire Saturday finishing up the roosters, telling myself I would get other stuff done around the house on Sunday. That didn't happen: I spent the whole day working on the owl. I don't have lots of "in progress" pictures since I completed most of it in one stretch, pausing only to get some lunch and walk the dog. It was a real luxury to be able to do that. I gave the final product to my wife as a gift. Here's how I made it.

I started assembling parts for the owl weeks ago, setting things aside that I thought would help me make what I was seeing in my head. I didn't end making anything like the owl I was picturing. In the basket, you'll see the steel rings (cut from a propane fryer) that I used to make the perch. The large green piece is a mounting bracket from an old Elgin outboard motor, the gas tank of which became the foundation for the head of my tyrannosaurus. I originally pictured that piece forming the shoulders of the owl. I didn't end up using it. In the end, I didn't end up using most of the pieces that I had set aside.

This photos shows some of the pieces I thought I was going to use laid out. You can see the outboard motor mounting bracket, a section of a grater that I thought would make a good foundation for a belly, and some bicycle parts (an axle and a kickstand cut in half) that I thought would make good hips/legs.

My original idea for the perch was to have the shorter arc stretching across and perpendicular to the C-shaped piece. I marked/cut that short piece a bit too short, however, which meant I was left with using the longer piece of the circle as the perch. It ended up working fine and, I think, probably looks better than the short piece would have.

This photo shows construction of the body in progress. I made the lower front using a piece of cheese grater. I formed the foundation of the back, sides, and "neck" with various pieces of rods, brackets, and other odds and ends. The gear on the right shoulder is from a lawnmower engine, I think.

This image shows the back of the owl under construction. I made the four exhaust pipes using sections cut from a hanging lamp that I rescued from a trash pile a short time ago. The lamp seemed like a good find, as it had lots of circles, curves, and semi-ornate curly parts that could be used in any number of ways. It ending up being really strange, though, because the metal is some sort of strange alloy that was very difficult for me to weld successfully. I know it's at least part ferrous metal (it's magnetic), but when I applied heat to some parts it shriveled up and turned into a pile of un-weldable garbage, like an aluminum can left in a campfire. So my big plans for using many parts of the lamp on this owl faded, as I just couldn't reliably attach the pieces.

The lamp. It's made of devil metal.

The cheese grater was fine to form the base of the lower body, but by itself it didn't have enough texture. I didn't want to repeat what I did with the first owl, but I wanted something to represent the belly feathers. I put out an APB for everything in the garage with with a U-shaped curve, and end up creating a second layer with tool hangers (the kind you use with pegboard), pieces of chain link, and some U-shaped nails.

I used a heavy steel hook from the outboard motor bracket to form a curving surface on the owl's chest.

I made the flight feathers using whatever I had that was thin and linear that wasn't a butter knife: saw blades, rulers, other odds and ends. I created the shoulder parts of the wings using the flange from a garage disposal (cut in half) and the covering from a lawnmower muffler (also cut in half).

The angle parts of the feet made from casters I pulled off of some cribs discarded on the curb outside the Rosewood Baptist Church.

This appears to be the only "in progress" photo I took of the head. I used the handles of an old pair of pliers to form the shape of the horns and brow. In retrospect, I wish I had cut down the length a tad more: they're just a bit long. As I was working on this (day 2) I woke up with the notion of actually giving the owl antlers. I decided, however, that I had enough on my hands at this point to bring it home as a "normal" owl. The mythological antlered owl will have to wait for another day.

The foundation of the head is another piece of a garbage disposal. I originally thought I could get the rim around the neck to conform to the shape of the body by beating it with a hammer once I got it attached. That didn't work at all. I tried heating it first using my propane torch, but even red hot it didn't want to bend very easily. The failure of heating/beating led me to cut the rim into sections so I could fold them down a bit. It ended up working fine, but it was another one of those things that I spent a lot of not-fun time on.

The top of the head is made with half of the piece of metal that covered the base of a desk lamp.

Here's the face completed. The eyes are wheels from some kind of device that I took apart at some point (I have no idea what it was -- they were mounted on a small metal plate that said "Mabeline" [that plate became part of the head]). I used washers, pieces of chain link, and part of a padlock to sculpt the face and brow.

Owls #1 and #2 perching on top of the corner cabinet.

I'm starting to really dislike the color of this room.

And now you are up to date.

The 4-Hour Mockingbird I Made in Just 7.5 Hours

1/28/2017

This mockingbird is the smallest sculpture I have welded so far. I started it right after I finished the MiG-15, on a rainy day when I couldn't push my crane and my unfinished stegosaurus outside like I normally do (to make room to maneuver).

When I started, I thought I could finish the bird in about 4-5 hours given it's size and relative simplicity. Because my welding and fabrication skills suck, however, it took me nearly 8 hours. I felt myself rushing during that time, which meant that I ended up not getting the wing and tail feathers quite how I wanted them. I like how it turned out, but there are a few things I would change and next time I won't try to rush -- it will just take the time it takes.

Here is a 360 degree video on YouTube:

I don't have many "in progress" shots of this one because I did it in only two sittings. The base is made from part of a coil spring and the perch is the tine from a pitchfork. The bird is made from nails and bolts, steel rod from an oven rack, and sheet metal from a lawn mower (black), filing cabinet (grey), curtain rods (white), and a patio table (white). The shiny piece at the rear end of the bird is the top of the tea kettle lid I used to make the top of the head of Owl #1.

Forward>>

Heron #1

"Rooster #1" Wins a Prize

Owl #2

The 4-Hour Mockingbird I Made in Just 7.5 Hours

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