During the second day of Thomas Hill’s wire sculpture workshop, we chose a drawing or photo of an animal to use as a reference. Choosing the drawing or photo has a big part to play in the final outcome.
If the photo shows the animal at an angle, only shows parts of the animal, or is short on detail, then the animal will be harder to recreate in wire. I wish I’d have had all these photos while I was in the workshop.
Drawing the outline of the creature helps determine the rough shape, which I did based on the photo in the upper left corner of the collection above.
We start with steel wire from spools, so knowledge of where to start, and which parts of the creature to create in what order is key.
When someone with a natural resource management degree saw my sculpture and identified the bird as if seeing one in the wild, I was satisfied that the wire is pretty representative of the pileated woodpecker. Even so, the bird looks chunkier than a live bird would be. One line of wire down the gut was too long, and I may do a little surgery on the bird before attaching him to a piece of copper. I am brewing an idea for a half round copper form to attach the woodpecker on so it can hang vertically on the wall as if it’s on a tree.
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