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I can’t believe it has been so long since I last posted anything on my blog! It has been such a busy year and I guess it went on the back burner. The problem with running your own business can be trying to do everything yourself. There is only so much time in the day and I will always prefer spending time in the forge, bashing metal, or working with clients to sitting in front of a computer screen. Still, I realise that I need to keep you up to date with what’s happening with Sculpted Steel.

I’m working on a couple of great commissions at the moment. One is a tree/bird feeder for a couple who love to sit in their conservatory and watch the birds. They have been hanging their feeders on a tree just outside the window but it has died and is falling apart. Also, the badgers that visit their garden at night have been pulling it apart to reach the fat balls! So they asked me to make a replacement in steel which is badger proof. It is nearly ready to be installed, just a couple more coats of paint. Unfortunately the paint is taking ages to dry because of the cold weather. My forge has no heating and it is hard to paint when you’ve lost all feeling in your fingers!

The other commission is a sculpture of a saluki dog, to run along the top of a wall in the client’s garden. The design started out as a line drawing the client’s late wife had drawn of their dog, which he wanted made into a free standing sculpture. This was a real challenge as the sketch was a beautiful gestural drawing with no lines touching each other. I didn’t want to ‘fill in’ the drawing as I felt it would lose its elegance and feeling of life and movements. So I added some grasses at either end which all the hanging lines could attach to, solving the structural problem without losing the feeling of the drawing. It is nearly complete now, just waiting to be galvanised and painted. Here’s some pictures of the commissions so far and I will post the final photos when they are completed.