The Elephant in the room

New! Elephant Weathervane

Our newest copper weathervane is just complete; a young elephant playing ball. The design was created with lots of input from the client as a special 80th birthday present to her husband.

Also in the studio is the banner weathervane from our village church, needing some attention. The oak timber which had been holding the heavy wrought iron mainshaft, had rotted out leaving the vane to list. Once a weathervane is no longer plumb, the wind can do considerable damage. Luckily the parish raised the money for scaffold and the banner was saved. This antique copper weathervane, which has a beautiful verde gris, has been repaired a few times over the years, giving it a great deal of history, and should probably have been retired and displayed for all to enjoy, a replica produced to go up on the church roof. In this case however the parish wished to put the original back on it's perch. The pierced inscription reads:

1720
RESTORED
1880  

Three Banners for Scotland

We seem to be having a run of Scottish commissions; this time a repeated design from the portfolio. The five original banner weathervanes  were completed when the studio was still on Dartmoor, back in 2004. These three new recruits have been commissioned to join the five, as the restoration project on the building is now finally complete. Eight weathervanes on eight turrets...very grand!

The banners represent the Scottish flag and included quite a number of small pieces to be assembled, including spun copper balls, rivets and brass rings. I love when the worktable looks this busy.

Once assembled and cleaned, they were left out on a glorious day, to dry & then into our "clean" studio for a gilding session.

Gordon decided to do a vane a day, which meant preparing the surface the night before, and then gilding for around five hours the next morning. Three full days of gilding...not the funnest weekend, but certainly a productive one!

Galleon Sails off!

The galleon weathervane, which was completed a fortnight ago,  is off to it's new home tomorrow. The custom 10 inch copper ball is gilt with 23.5K double thick English gold leaf.

The project before the galleon was a wild boar. This weathervane design was intended to be whimsical rather than fierce.

The next projects include three large banner weathervanes and a traditional weathercock based on the gilt design on Riga Cathedral...and then there is Art in Action at Waterperry House. Come see our stand/demo from the 21st-24th July.