New Studio

Hello all and sundry, hope everything is going well and dandy for you all. As you can guess from the title, I have a new, larger, studio. It's awesome. Polished floorboards and the works, new stuff galore and enjoying it immensely. Finally feeling like an established studio.

I have been extremely busy of late, hence the lack of posts, but I will try and make up for it in the next few months. Considering my computer is in my studio now I may even try to figure out how to do a live feed from here... could be interesting.

Anyways, have some photos of recent stuff....

Bohemian porcelain basket, somewhat damaged. (before)

Porcelain Basket drying (after)

I have been working on a lot of private collections that predominantly deal with antiquities, sadly I am not allowed to photograph them to display publicly, but when I do get another chance to do so, I will.

Porcelain Candleabra that was dropped (before)

Porcelain Candleabra finished (after)

Thank you all from dropping by and having a looksee. Feel free to comment or to drop me a line via gmail.

Cahl.

Augustus Moreau Statue

Hi all, been too busy to blog, sorry, I'm a bad person. Now that I am forgiven have a look at this statue by Aug. Moreau. It was a mess. It's still not complete ( I have yet to inform the owner that it is missing some wings, a marble stand and a huge chalice) but I repaired the parts that were not coping so well with its strange, altered existence.

The right arm at the shoulder had been cracked and restored rather nicely but new fissures had opened. Same with the left leg at the knee and of course, the base was somewhat separated.

I had to cut through the base, at the foot and I discovered that about 3/4 of it was car bog and a half inch bolt that was placed within the bog was designed to stabilise the whole piece, it's a heavy piece, probably 5kgs or so, bronze be like that.

I had to dig out all the old restoration and rebuild it with stronger materials.....

Getting to that bolt was a nightmare. Who knew that car bog could be such a hassle to remove?

I re-used the original bolt, it's a restorers thing. I try and keep as much of the pieces history intact. That and it was a modern stainless steel marine bolt. That won't be breaking in a hurry. Better than those wrought iron nightmares that I've had to work on in the past.

my ice cream fell on the footpath. boo.

So, after holding this piece until it set, 1 hour later, thank you, it looked like everything was going to be smooth sailing. Guess what? It was. Phew. So after the pain of sanding the piece for about 3 hours I added the undercoat and moved on to the final patina. It's a process called, "Johanning", don't ask, long story. Anyways here is the finished piece, completed, as long as you don't know that the wings are missing and so on and so forth....

My ice cream is just next to that piece of jade!

Anyways, thanks for dropping by and have another look at my blogness thing, I will try and be a better person and update you lot more often. Till then, have fun. Break some stuff for me.

Cahl.

More works in progress....

Hello everyone, once again I have been snowed under with the amount of works I have on the boil. Sorry for not posting more frequently but I'm under the hammer as such. The last two months have been, well, hectic. I have started doing Antiquities recently and frankly, it's been freaking me out. It is a very strange headspace to be working on a piece that is 2000 years old. I've always been of the method to try and attain the same techniques as the original artist and achieve some kind of sympathetic result. It's very taxing but well worth the extra effort.

Anyways, here are a few photos, enjoy.

A pair of Art Nouveau chalkware vases from 1910-20, they look in much better shape now.

Centre piece is a bronze Indo -Chinese statue from 400 AD. Around the base are rings from various countries, predominantly the Middle East.

These are probably the most stunning ivory carvings that I have ever seen. From China, about 1870-1910.

Art Deco lamp, need I say more?

Chinese Rosewood sculpture. Amazing piece that had been neglected for about 30 years, he weighs roughly 125 kgs. My studio is on the 3rd floor, ow.

Far left, Kohl bottle in the shape of a bird 50 AD. Background right, Bactrian horse amulet, bronze 5 BC. Foreground, 3 Mongoose coffins from Egypt, 25 BC

Well, as you can see I have had a wide array of pieces coming through my door at the moment, some of the pieces are a tad weird but that's the luck of the draw with what has been made in the past. I look forward to seeing what is going to need help in being restored for the future.

Thanks for dropping by,

Cahl.

Current photo of studio...

Hello all. This is the current state of affairs with my studio space. The space itself is 6ft x 6ft. It's full.
There is also more repairs coming in as of today and thankfully they are of small bronzes from Indo-China. As they say, when it rains, it pours but this is decidedly monsoonal....

left to right: Chinese vase from 16th century, John Bell sculpture, William Ricketts sculpture, Various Moore pieces, 2 Oil paintings from the late 1890s,  Moorecroft bowl, Japanese lacqureware piece, Victorian crystal vase, 2 French Deco chalware vases and a pair of 1910 scrimshaw pieces. Oh, then there are the bronzes which I forgot to mention.

Now then, I may or may not be able to continue with blog updates due to being hellishly busy but I will try to add photos and snippets over the next weeks or so.

Thanks for dropping by, now go and smash something and support your local business.

Recent restorations

Hello all, Happy New Year and such (19 days late, but that's the way us restorers work). Christmas is never really a busy time for restorations so I actually had a bit of a holiday, a kind of working holiday. I ended up being approached by a few people to work on a few projects, but this time at my own leisure.
In the break I also revisited studying about conservation for oil paintings and bronze works. It's good to refine the old brain for such matters.

Enjoy the photos, you'll find the descriptions either attached to the photo or just near it, scroll down. Any questions? just ask....


This is a Moorish piece from about the 1920's. A lot of the detailed gold filigree work was coming away from the plaster base so thus I had to stabilise the substructure by injecting glues under the skin of the plaster. The rest was just a cosmetic overhaul.

Detail of filigree.

Next piece is one of my favourites that I have recently worked upon, yes, a Raku whale fighting a giant squid!! at last! Another piece from the early 20th century. Amazing details, humour and expression throughout. The tentacles, fins and tail had been smashed off. Had to re-glue the piece and fill, then paint. I was pretty happy with the results, so was the fish and chips shop owner that it went to. Ah, restorations, weird times...

Raku whale and giant squid!

Here is another photo showing the disgruntled look of the whale. In hindsight I should have offered to buy the piece.

Squid goes "WAHOOOO"

Next photos are of the usual repairs that I do, chips and cracks, chips and cracks....

Chips and cracks.

As much as I dislike working on chips and cracks, I find that it hones my skills and settles the mind. Sometimes the act of repetition steadies the soul keeps the eyes attuned to the details that other people don't bother to look at. Some of the most "basic" vases are the ones that will blow your mind when you look closely at them. See the one in the middle (above)? 200 years old, 4 different glazes and two firings at different temperatures. It's survived all of that and I helped it along for hopefully another 200 years worth of appreciation. 

Just remember folks, "The devils in the detail".

Thanks for dropping by.