Coleus Mama for Alice in Sweden ~ Day 3

By Janet Colvin (UniQueTreasures) on May 25, 2010

Day 3 ~ We created the Square Stem for the Coleus Mama, Cut and Shaped our Leaves, Created her Hands and some Cutting Shears, and Started Assembling the Dress. Over 500 photos and videos were taken on Day 3. She's coming along quite nicely.

Click on the play button to hear music as you read this article.

DAY 3

This is our neice, Cammie.

She helped us out by taking videos and photos.   It's taken me some time to edit all of the photos and organize them to present here.

We've collected a few more orbs that we could possibly use for a head. Knowing how Alice loves Blue Coleus, we'll give her the choice of which one she wants for the head. Personally, we prefer the one on the left below.

Connie and I begin Day 3 by digging in our scrap box for small pieces of copper we can use for leaves. We save even the smallest pieces of copper, never knowing when they might come in handy.

Each of us gets out something to cut the copper into leaf shapes. At this point they don't have to be perfect leaves. The nibbler will be used to shape them up like coleus.

This was one of those times when our scraps get put to really good use. We cut out about 80 leaf shapes.

Click Here to see the first Video we did of the cutting of the leaves. For some reason I couldn't embed it here in this article.

I think we've figured out how to make a square stem for the Coleus Mama. I told Connie about Rick's idea to use a 4X4 or 6X6 board and hammer the copper into a grove we would cut out of the board. We didn't have anything quite that big, but Connie had a scrap of cedar leftover in a rectangular shape so she inserted it into the copper tube and hammered it. The wood prevented the copper from collapsing as she hammered. It gave us a nice rectangular shape.

First the copper must be heated. This copper pipe is very rigid. Heating it up makes it more maleable.   Once it's been heated thoroughly, it is quenched (cooled down with water) so it can be handled.

It might not be perfectly square, but it's dern close!

Connie hammers on the neck piece to make it fit into the rectangle.

We check the fit and it's perfect!

This is my daughter Hillary and granddaughter, Jolie Faye.

When Hillary showed up with her DSLR camera, Cammie and Jolie played in the pool while Hillary took some of the photos and videos. Both girls helped out tremendously. Many of the next photos are taken from Hilllary's perspective.   We had to tell her "the rules" of photographing us and videoing us. Afterall, our Mom will be watching this too! HAHAHA

We begin shaping the leaves with the nibbler. It's time consuming, but they look pretty good.

We've done quite a few and it's time to take a break. We all stop to eat some lunch.

Shavings inside the big trash can from cutting out the leaves with the pneumatic nibbler.

I cannot believe we didn't save these. Welded together they might have been the hair on the next sculpture.

Just this moment thought of that, so we'll have to remember the next time to save the "nibblings". HAHAHAHA

Connie uses a brick breaker to give the leaves some veins. This worked perfectly!

She hammered a bit and then asked if I wanted to do some.

Here are some of the leaves. Amazing what a little ingenuity can do for a piece of copper.

We switch and I begin using the brick breaker.

On to her hands.

We bend a tube of copper for her arms and cut some little pieces for her fingers. We use a copper "cuff" (found at Home Depot) for her wrist and insert the fingers. Then slide this over the tube arm.

(From here on out the captions will be UNDER the photo instead of above.)

Arms are welded to the body.

Connie begins cutting out the Coleus Mama's Cutting Shears.

The Blades

Blades and Handles

She lays them on the anvil to be welded

Positions everything "just so"

Ready to be welded

Connie fires up the torch. Gets the flame just right. The Lieutenant wasn't very happy about all of the soot though!

(That's an inside joke with us!)

She begins tacking everything together.

Attaches them to the thumb

We start on the other hand, repeating the process. Notice the flat fingers. I hammered them so they didn't have sharp points on them.

I use round nose pliers to curl her fingers around the shears

Ready to tack in one more place so they stay where we want them.

Connie tacks the fingers to the shears

They will be much prettier when they've been cleaned up and torched with some color.

We're using that square copper (seen at the beginning of the creation) for stems also.

The leaves will be attached to these smaller square stems. We think of them as branches

They can always be repositioned when the leaves are attached.

I match up the leaves by size so we've got some pairs.

We cut some small wires and will attach a leaf on each side

These pairs will be then attached to the square branches

Unfortunately, we ran out of oxygen at this point.

About Janet Colvin
I love unique and unusual things. Connie and I create Copper Sculptures from new and recycled materials. I love thrift shopping and love a good bargain.

I'm married to a great guy, with 2 beautiful daughters and 4 incredible grandchildren and we live in Southeast Texas.

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Comments and discussion:

Subject Thread Starter Last Reply Replies

Bravo! Zanymuse Jun 4, 2010 1:14 PM 8

I loved this article! nap May 25, 2010 8:33 AM 2