Continuing the journal of Martin Pierce’s Raven sculpture.
Following his visit to Big Bear where he was able to see raven’s up close Martin decided he needed to change the pose of his sculpture to show the raven cawing with his beak open and throat puffed to make the distinctive sound raven’s use when declaring their territory or courting.
Once captured in pencil, the raven’s 3 perspectives were outlined onto rough wood blocks, one for each section of his body. In deciding how to sectionalize the raven’s shape Martin had to reverse engineer the sculpture by determining how the bronze would eventually flow, where the gates for the bronze could best be added and where thereby the bird could best be sectioned.
Constructing and de-constructing a Raven for lost wax casting
If Martin had been intending to make only one wood sculpture he would have chosen a wood with more character than basswood and would have sculpted the bird from one block of wood rather than several pieces. However, as this sculpture will be used to create several molds for lost wax casting the sculpture was made so that it could be de-constructed.
The raven will be cast in bronze and will be available as a limited edition. The raven will join his feathered friend the scrub jay in Martin’s collection of bronze sculptures, which as well as portraying birds also portrays insects in fictional settings.