I did well in Loveland at the Sculpture in the Park Show. I sold 2 castings of my Dying Ibex, the only 2 I had in stock as a matter of fact. My next event is the "Sculpture at the River Market" show in Little Rock, Arkansas in mid October. I had not planned on doing this show this year. I have been sticking close to home as far as shows are concerned. These road shows can be expensive, and I had been choosing to direct my money and time to fleshing out my inventory. But John Kinkade(of Columbine Gallery and National Sculpture Guild fame) called me out of the blue in late July. He informed me that 3 sculptors had dropped out at the last minute and they needed replacement sculptors. He recommended me to show, and very quickly had me convinced that this was an excellent venue not to be missed.

However, there's much work to be done. 

First, I had to pull out the mold for Dying Ibex and cast 2 waxes to replace the one's sold in Loveland. I began this immediately after the show. They've just been gated and delivered to the foundry, and I should see metal in a couple of weeks. 

Second, I needed to expand on my inventory a bit. Little Rock's River Market show has larger booths than the shows I've been attending. They allow more pieces per booth. I've only been at this 2 years now. My inventory is not as deep as sculptors who've been at this much longer than I. I needed to flesh out my inventory quickly.

I had been intending on doing 2 side projects for a while, but hadn't gotten around to them. This pushed these to the fore. The first one was involving "Autumn Winds", the buck and doe antelope pair. The bodies on the final sculpture were fused together. But in order to get at the hard to reach areas where the two were close, I had set them up as separate armatures which made it easy to "break" the two apart and sculpt them separately. Though I was very satisfied with the two together, I noticed that the doe figure was a strong piece on its own. I decided to revisit the idea of sculpting her as a separate piece at a later date. The second idea was recommended by 2 individual sculptor friends independent of one another. That idea being to take the head from one of my sculptures and offer this "bust" as a separate piece. The Ibex has been getting great feedback, so I had decided to investigate this with the Dying Ibex head as well.
 
So in short order, I had taken a wax casting of the doe, armatured it, and resculpted the hole where it fused to the buck. I spotted a few other revisions that I would be happier with, and did some slight resculpting. Her belly has gotten a bit more plump to accentuate her female qualities. The shoulders needed some softening as well. This only took a week. She's quite strong and I'm quite happy with her. Her working title as of now is "Mirage".

The Ibex head went well too. I used cut wax castings and tried 2 different versions- one with no shoulders, the other cut with just a hint of shoulder. The later was a stronger piece. 

I finished the sculpting, molding, wax pour and chase in a mere 3 weeks! 

I was hoping to bash out one more piece in clay and rush this through for a debut at Little Rock. I have 2 strong ideas to choose from. But neither seems to have a "flow" to it yet which would make them worthy of a commitment to bronze. I may bring the near finished or finished clay, but have dropped the idea of getting it finished in bronze in such a short time frame. 

I'm also toying with a Stag head similar to the Ibex Bust, using the Birth of the Sacred Stag head.  

The next posting should be of rough cast metal from the foundry.