My Studio Makes Transparent Animal Sculptures With Pieces Of Nature Inside

I have been drawing since childhood, I have been doing sculpture since the end of 2006. Several years ago I began to cooperate with a foundry, and now I sculpt each sculpture only once, and then they make copies from it in the workshop.

First, I make a master model from a material that is more pleasant and understandable to me. This is air dry clay (velvet clay).

Then I give the model to our casting workshop.

The mold is created from the original figurine and copies are made from casting resin Smootch-Cast. Most often 20 castings are obtained from one mold, but this process can be repeated endlessly.

I am grateful to modern technology. I still work hard and get very tried, but I no longer feel like a hostage to my job.

Since we started using casting resin, I feel freer in my art. I don’t havу to churn out an endless number of one-off figurines. It was very tiring and drained of creative energy.

It may seem to some that less soul is invested in “copies”. But now I work with much more pleasure on every figurine, even a small and simple one. And painting by hand gives each sculpture its individuality.

I use acrylic paints and acrylic varnish. I design all the color combinations and patterns myself and draw the eyes myself. I also paint many of the sculptures entirely by myself. But I also have assistants.

For me, both art and sculptures are primarily a “book”, a message. And book, if it’s good, cannot get worse because of the millions of copies.

This year I have implemented a project that I have been thinking about for a long time. These are transparent figurines of animals filled with natural materials: feathers, moss, lichens. I was very inspired by epoxy jewelry made using a similar technique, but I don’t use jewelry and love figurines more. I thought, “How cool would be the pieces of moss and feathers in the transparent silhouette of a wolf!”

I do not make these castings myself, this is a technical process that I send to the workshop. But I make my own master models from velvet clay, and I also do painting sculptures by hand. I buy bird feathers for the filler, and I collect moss and lichens in the forest myself.

I really love these “Ice” sculptures from crystal resin. They are pleasant to hold in your hands and very interesting to look at them in different lighting conditions. It just makes me happy.

More info: Etsy