Fun With Snow Globes

Having some fun in the studio playing with snow globes. They seem pretty start forward at first but then you have to think about what materials you are using, and will they hold up to being submerged in water from now until the end of time.

For my snow globes I made small glazed ceramic sculptures that I epoxied to the inside lids of varies jars I've been collection over the last few months.

One of the key differences between a good snow globe and a less than satisfactory snow globe is the air trapped inside of the jar. If there is an air bubble at the top, you have a substandard snow globe.

The best way to prevent this bubble is to submerge all the parts in a bucket of water while putting the snow globe together. I was amazed at all the Youtube videos that skipped this detail. In fact I was amazed at all the videos that simply guaranteed the end product would be all round crappy.

In the photo above you will notice the green algae. This is due to the fact that I used egg shells instead of plastic confetti for my snow. Egg shell and mother of peal where common in Victorian snow globes, but the Victorians also tended to use oil instead of water... I did boil the egg shell first, but there was still enough proteins left to grow a very nice microcosm. Perhaps next time I'll add a few sea monkeys.

SculptCAD Rapid Artists 3D Printed Sculpture

The SculptCAD Rapid Artists Project was organized by Nancy Hairston in 2010 as a way to showcase the versatility of rapid prototyping 3D printing. Each year she has asked artists to come to the  SculptCAD offices and learn how to use this technology, then make some art.

The SculptCAD Rapid Artists 3D Printed Sculpture show at the One Arts Plaza is a quick sampling of some of the artwork that has been produced over the years. This show was presented to dove tail with the Aurora Dallas event. Artist in the show are: Steven Hopwood Lewis, Shane Pennington, Heather Gorham, Patty Delarios, Shawn Smith, Mark Grote, Morehshan Allahyari, Dave Van Ness, Joshua Goode, Elliot Johnson, Shelle Carring, Joshua King, and myself, Brad Ford Smith.

Below are a few snaps from the exhibit.

Brad Ford Smith

Brad Ford Smith - Servings is a nod to the Balloon Dog sculpture by Jeff Koons.

Heather Gorham

Heather Gorham - Is it a circus trick or a view of the universe?

Elliot Johnson

Elliot Johnson - Hellbender, a salamander with self-esteem issues. 

Shane Pennington

Shane Pennington - Pushing the binderies between art , technology and nature with his living bonsai tree with spliced in resin print.

Snow Globe or Lab Specimen

Been working on a series of sculptures that walk the line between snow globe and lab specimen.

I've never made a snow globe before, so I turned to the world of DIY videos. It's surprising how many  there are out there, and how 90% of them are doing it wrong. For one thing, you have to submerge the globe in water while putting the lid on, other wise there is no way to prevent air bubbles.

I know what you are saying, Well mister smarty pants, I see an air bubble in your snow globe! Yes you do, and that is because I didn't presoak the ceramic sculpture before putting the lid on the globe. That air was trapped inside the pores of the ceramic. Who would have ever thought of that?

You might also be saying, Looks a little green inside that magical wonderland. That's probably due to the algae feeding on the proteins from the egg shells. Egg shells and mother of pearl are what they used before the invention of plastic snow flakes. That said, I kind of like the green. It adds a bit of realism to the old, musty lab specimen effect.

A Week With Li-Qua-Che 4.0

This is our fourth and last Li-Qua-Che project. This time we are creating a small one piece mold that will be used to cast both sides of an object. The photo above shows the oil clay model of a 4" nubby club just before pouring on the plaster.

The nubby club is framed by plastic retaining walls to create a form to pour the plaster into. The model and walls are lightly sprayed with PAM as a release agent. 

Here is the plaster mold after hardening. It still has the oil clay club in place which came out easily with the help of a pick to grab the oil clay and lift it out.

The mold is cleaned with a little naphtha to remove any oil residue. Now is also the time to clean the mold of any surface anomalies. 

The mold is filled with Li-Qua-Che. After waiting 5 minutes the Li-Qua-Che is poured out leaving behind a 1/8" leather hard layer of Li-Qua-Che in the mold. In the photo you can see the Li-Qua-Che shell is pulling away from the plaster walls as it dries and shrinks.

Here are the two cast sides pulled from the same mold. In theory these two sides should fit together perfectly. But due to the shrinkage ratio of the Li-Qua-Che, the edges shrink back more than the surface areas. This creates edges that are thin, pointy and uneven.  Keep that in mind when building your model. All edges need to be extended so that in the edges of the finished casting can be sanded back to create smooth even joins.

So, here is the nubby club glued together and the seams filled with spackle. Note that the surface shows finger prints and boogers found on the original oil clay model. If you don't clean up the model and/or clean the surface of the mold, you'll be cleaning those finger prints and boogers off every casting.

Well, That concludes our week of playing with Li-Qua-Che. I haven't even touched our projects that used two part molds. But I think that's more than enough posting about this topic. Any more and I will need to open an online Li-Qua-Che store, and that would expose me to way to many questions pertaining to doll heads.

A Week With Li-Qua-Che 3.0

Due to the Dallas Art Fair with 83 galleries, multiple lectures and a few side art events, plus posting about the art fair for Art and Seek, these last two BFS blog posts about Li-Qua-Che had to be postponed until this week. Anyway, back to fun with liquid paper mache... Size does make a difference.

In our past Li-Qua-Che projects we made large tiles that had issues with de-molding, warpage and strength. In this project we scaled down the tile to 5"x 8". We also dropped the idea of incorporating open areas/holes into the design. Above is our smaller finished tile after curing over night. You can tell by the surface that it still needs some light sanding with 0000 steel wool to smooth it out.

This photo shows the plaster mold and the back side of the cast tile. The compactness of this tile design avoided issues of warpage. The tile also held up to the stress test of being dropped on the floor. (An accident that we will take credit for doing)

We did notice that the edges of the tile were a bit ruff. With that in mind, when designing a one piece mold, the model should be fabricated a little taller so the ragged edges can be sanded down to form a straight, smooth edge.

A Week With Li-Qua-Che 2.0

This post continues with our week long experiments with Li-Qua-Che. The photo above shows design model #2. The cork sub-straight has been gessoed and oil clay has been added to smooth out and build up the surface.

This is the plaster mold pulled from the above model. It has cured in the oven over night. The mold measures about 12" square.

And here is the finished Li-Qua-Che casting. The Li-Qua-Che picks up every detail including scratches and finger prints. So make you model as smooth as possible, and then smooth the walls of the plaster mold as well.

There was some difficulty getting the casting out of the mold, but with the help of a small pallet knife, it finally came free. The real issue was that while the casting was sitting on the table curing, it began to sag and warp.

Summing up our experiments so far, this material is surprisingly strong, but it has size limitations. It will not hold its shape if casting a single sided tile over 10" in size. With that in mind we'll move onto designing two more projects; a smaller 8" tile, and an object that is similar in proportion to a doll head.

Here's a link to some more Li-Qua-Che tips at Konittajo's Playhouse.

A Week With Li-Qua-Che 1.0

My good friend and fellow artist Kent Peaslee came down from Chicago to spend a week with me playing with Li-Qua-Che. It was like creating our own artists residency.

What is Li-Qua-Che? Basically it's a liquid paper mache that has been refined to the point that it looks more like porcelain slip. It's designed to make slip castings of things like doll heads.

During our week of investigation, we played with a lot of casting techniques, learning a lot and pushing the product to its limits. Over the next four BFS blog posts I'll be reviewing projects that focus on casting a tile from a one piece mold.

Our first project was to create an 8"x11" sculptural tile that incorporates an open space in the center of the tile. Above is the original design drawing.

In this photo we are building the sub-straight for the tile using sheets of cork. We then covered the cork with oil clay and added some details. 

This is the plaster mold we pulled from the model. The mold was placed in a warm oven to speed the evaporation of the water from the plaster. Be careful doing this as the plaster will go through thermal shock if it gets too hot too quickly or cools down too fast.

Now for some casting. Here the Li-Qua-Che has been poured into the mold. After waiting 8 minutes it was poured out of the mold. What remains is a 1/8" thick wall of Li-Qua-Che (The gray stuff).

The Li-Qua-Che shrinks 4-7% as it dries. Just like slip casting with ceramic slip, it pulls away from the walls releasing itself. In theory, as long as there are not undercuts, the casting, after 30-60 minutes should just drop out of the mold. Unfortunately our design with the big open space in the middle of the tile created a large solid form that the Li-Qua-Che locked onto as it shrank. Getting it out of the mold caused cracks in the casting. After curing, the casting simply fell apart at the weakest structural points.

First Steps To A Wall Installation

Here's a quick snapshot of a wall installation in the mud and plaster stage.

My sketchbook is getting filled with drawings of elongated forms that often have knobs, forks, and horns. I am turning some of these into small ceramic sculptures that will eventually be installed as a random scattering on a wall.

In the photo above, in the bottom left corner is an oil clay model on a 5"X 7" MDF panel. The white block next to it is a plaster mold cast from one of the oil clay models. Above that, to the left is a plaster mold filled with clay. Next, shows the extra clay cleared away from the mold surface. On the blue board are the clay sculptures after being removed from the molds. 

From here the sculptures go into the kiln to be bisque fired, then glazed, and then high fired. The ones that survive this torturous trial will become part of a large wall installation.

Tin Time In The Studio

There's a strange winter garden growing in the studio. A catfood can garden.

After burning away hours/months on my Wordpress website, I've decided that my humble Blogspot blog is really very nice, and that I should drop the mantra Right after the website is up, and just get back to blogging.

And The Idea Fund Grant Goes To...

This was my second time to apply for an Idea Fund grant. The first was in 2009, as a joint effort with Beam, Plank and Flitch, constructing 6 public wood benches made from urban harvested trees. That one missed because I think the judges thought it was to pedestrian and not art centric enough. Although sense that time Dallas has become over run by urban harvesters.

In 2011, I applied with the Automated Cordycep Project:

The Automated Cordycep Project is about playing with a narrative; it’s about combining sculpture, nature, and science, with a gorilla approach to exposing the public to a sci-fi narrative of near future disaster…

And the prize… went to somebody else. Actually 10 somebody elses. I looked over the list, and can say that on first glance, they all look like solid proposals. Each having a large friendly public component, which I think is where my project might have been lacking. Mine had public interaction, but more on the level of terrorizing large crowds with remote controlled cars infected with a parasitic fungus.

So. I’ll add this to the list of impressive art organizations that I have applied to but have not been accepted by. It is said that if you don’t get rejection notices, you’re not trying hard enough, which I do think is true, although I really do prefer the non-rejection notices.

A Little Fungus For A Good Cause

I should have posted this sculpture before the Art Conspiracy's fundraiser happened... Well I'm doing it now.... This is Cordycep Flamingo. He was part of the Better Gnomes and Gardens auction put on by Art Conspiracy.

He is your average pink flamingo except he is suffering from a cordycep fungus. This type of parasitic fungus mostly infects bugs, like grasshoppers and ants, slowly driving them insane and turning their bodies into stalagmite covered husks. It looks like a horrific way to die. I would love to see this happen to a few of the fire ant in my front yard.

I created this sculpture in hopes that placing it in your yard or garden it will act like a scarecrow, and scare the holly crape out of all the fire ants.

By the way, a few of my friends did point out that items at fundraiser tend to sell better if they are based on humor or cutely puppies, and not horror show fungi. But like the commercial says Who doesn't like to kill fire ants? And I am pleased to say that it did sell for a nice amount.

To see some great photos of cordycep covered bugs, as well as lots of great pictures of Normal bugs and fungus, check out Kim Fliming's Flickr site.

Putting on a Polish

On the bottom row are the 3 bronze sculptures I have been working on in the last wax casting class at CAC. They are polished up, patinated and to all purposes they are finished. They are about 2 inches long, and fit very comfortably in the hand. A friend said they feel like worry stones or hand candy. Perhaps I'll carry them around in my pocket, and when someone asks what I do I can hand them one and say "This, only bigger."

In my last posting I mentioned the risk of losing all your hard work during that .05 seconds of pouring bronze. Well, the first 2 items on the second row are a good example. I mislabeled the flasks, so when I poured this flask I didn't have enough bronze to fully cast the sculptures. GRRR

The black shapes are paper cut outs of the sculptures yet to be poured. We have one more class this session. We'll be spending the whole time casting. Our teacher, Rebecca Swann is a highly skilled jewelerist and a well of knowledge.

Playing With Hot Molten Metal

In last weeks lost wax casting class at the Creative Arts Center I invested 3 small wax sculptures. This week it's time to pour hot molten metal!

The wax sculptures have been melted out of the investment leaving behind a hollow space inside the very, very hot flask.

Now it's time to  slip on flame proof gloves and welding goggles, pull out the torch, and melt some bronze. This takes about 5 minutes.

Once the molten bronze starts to swirl around in the crucible it's time to pour. Note the orange stream of bronze going into the flask. Hot, Hot, Hot.

It's in there, and it should have filled ALL the hollow areas... Let us pray... In lost wax casting you can work hours and hours on the wax sculpture, just to loose everything in that .05 seconds of poring.

And here they are! 3 small almost perfect bronze sculptures!!! There are a few nubs and surface burps that will be removed when I take off the casting sprues. Then, well then we move on to polishing. This is not a quick process.

Lost Wax Casting: Sprues of Hope

It's called sprueing; attaching wax sticks (the red stuff) to the wax sculptures (the purple stuff), then mounting the sculptures onto a mold base(the black stuff). Next the steel tubes you see in the background, slide into the bases and are filled with investment (high temperature plaster). The wax will be burned out leaving a hollow area that the metal, in this case bronze will be poured into.

Technically, I think I followed all the rules of lost wax casting, but during the pouring all you can do is hope for the best. I'll be pouring/casting next week, so stay tuned to find out if they turn out to be beautiful sculptures or monstrous blobs?!

You can follow this project as well as all the other stuff going on in and around the studio by subscribing at Brad Ford Smith Blog.

Small Scale Sculptures

I started a Lost Wax Casting class at the Creative Arts Center last Thursday. As you can see Stanley, the art critic is letting me know which of my wax sculptures needs more work. Eventually the wax sculptures will be cast in bronze and become part of a wall mounted installation.

Sparkles the Bling Bling Birthday Cow

About 18 years ago there was a city wide public sculpture project in Chicago where all the artists were given life sized fiberglass cows to do artistic things to. As you can imagine they did just about anything you can imagine to those cows. It was a very big success.

The city of Dallas followed suite a few years later, except they used a fiberglass Pegasus. Personally I think the Pegasi supplied to the artists were over designed, with to much pre-built in creator, so most of the Pegasi I saw were not very good. Some of them can still be seen around town 10 years later. I was actually asked to do a conservation assessment on one. It was such a bad mix of badly mixed mediums that I pronounced it lame and suggested they shoot it.

Anyway, I started thinking about all of this because I spent today making a 2394 rhinestone incrusted bovine as a birthday present for a dear friend. She's having one of those landmark birthdays, the kind that includes a big California blow out built around a cowgirl theme.

I was kind of surprised to find that when my socially sophisticated friend moved to LA, she started cultivating her very, very slight association with cow culture into a Texas Cowgirl gone LA mystic.

Happy Birthday Cowgirl! Don't take your spurs off until the saloons close up and your horse falls asleep.

Loading The Kiln At CAC

The sculptures from the workshop I led at the Creative Arts Center are finally dry enough to load into the kiln. Glo Coalson has been teaching me the delicate art of firing large lumps of solid clay, AKA sculpture.

Looking down into the kiln, it kind of looks like a relaxing day at the spa, except the girls in this sauna are going to get unbelievable hot.

Playing In The Mud At The Dallas Arboretum

Being involved with the Creative Arts Center has opened up several unexpected opportunities to push my studio centric self out into the public eye. The latest example was at the Dallas Arboretum's annual art fair, ArtScope. It focuses on artisans like potters, wood turners and glass fusing-ists(?) About 100 artisan booths nestled among the blooming trees and flowers.

Anyway, DA asked CAC to send over a few art teachers to do art demonstrations, so here I am standing under the trees working on a clay bas-relief sculpture of the cafe gardens. 

I was out there for about 4 hours. I don't think the sculpture is the best I have done, but it was fun talking about making art, having my photo taken a lot, and handing out little balls of clay to all the kids.  A casual observer might think they were watching a sun burned Van Gogh feeding dirt to young children...

Next week it's off to North Park Mall for some speed sculpting at ARTsPARK.

Workshop, The Expressive Figure in Clay

I was going to send out a notice about the free figurative clay workshop that I am leading at the Creative Arts Center, but it has already filled up. YEAH! Thank god. My nerves hate spending time in limbo. Give me the stress of deadlines, due dates and real problems any day. Worrying about things like missing a airplane flight or if an art class is going to make or not, drives me crazy!


Anyway, if sculpting from the figure sounds interesting to you, the Spring classes at CAC start on March 7th. Still plenty of time to register. I'll be teaching The Expressive Figure in Clay on Thursday nights and possibly Thursday mornings, too. 


Here's the class description:


The Expressive Figure In Clay
During this live model sculpting class, students will explore expressive ways of capturing the figure in clay. The basics of human proportion, sculptural form and the physicality of clay will be highlighted, but the focus on the class will be creating a personal artistic voice. We will explore slow and rapid ways of describing the figure in clay, from drawing on slabs to bas relief to free standing sculptures. This class is open to all skill levels. First day of class, bring any sort of tools or utensils that can manipulate or poke clay. 


Thursdays, March 10- April 12th 6:30 -9:30 pm
And possibly Thursday mornings 9:30am- 12:30pm

In The Studio - Out Of The Loop

There is nothing like having a dead line to encourage spending quality time in the studio. The stimulus this time is an exhibition with CJ Miller as part of the Out Of The Loop Fringe Festival. This festival is held at the WaterTower Theatre. Here's a short snip of PR:

March 3-13, 2011

For the past nine years, WaterTower Theatre’s Out of the Loop Fringe Festival has wowed audiences with an exciting and unmatched artistic lineup. Featuring some of the best acts in theatre, music, dance and art from around the region, OOTL continues to bring all three spaces of the Addison Theatre Centre alive with exciting, contemporary work.

Out of the Loop Festival Passes are on sale now. Call the box office for more information.

With 59 performances in 10 days you can see that OOTL focuses on live performances, with Chris and I simply adding a bit of color to the lobby walls. Last year, OOTL drew 4000 people, so even though it is a short run, there's a lot of eyeballs mingling around in the lobby.

The photo is of a few plaster sculptures I have been working on. I'll have 5 of them finished up for the show.