Category Archives: Rolling Ball Sculpture

New Sculpture video “Subside-to-Side,” and It’s Been Too Long!

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Friends and family – or maybe just friends, I won’t make any assumptions on my readership – I apologize for having been away from the blog for…nearly a whole year! It’s ridiculous. I don’t have any good excuses. Are there any GOOD excuses? Act of God might count, I suppose. Death, but that would curtail my writing permanently. Not too many others.

I can safely say that my time away has been due to two things. One, being pretty busy with “real life” stuff, which doesn’t quite cover all the free time I’ve had. And two, being somewhat overwhelmed by a lot of talk/advice I’ve read around the interwebs about “growing your audience through blogging.” I’m still confused by what it all means, and the more I think about it and try to come up with what it seems I should be writing, the longer the expanse of time grows between that last blog post and this one.

I’m kind of tired of it, the not writing. I’ve actually been very hard at work with the art, and I’d like to tell you guys about it. Maybe I’ll never figure out how to write the perfect blog post that will drive seven million people to my blog, half of which will look at my site, one-sixteenth of whom will write me once with a question, and one percent of that who will either buy something from me or hire me to do a commission.

Know what? Those numbers are probably all too high. Even if there were seven million people, the following numbers, I have been told, are far, far, FAR lower, which is why you’re supposed to craft perfect blog posts. *sigh* Get it?

At any rate, how about I just let you know what’s up around the ol’ fantabulous art factory? There have been several new pieces I’ve created since June of last year. I’ve done “#30 Molar” for a dentist’s office in Indianapolis, and following that there was an amazing whirlwind of creativity and lack of sleep and sweat that resulted in “Meer-col,” both of which are viewable below.

Following the completion of “Meer-col” the holidays rolled in, and it was hard to get much done. Wait! That’s not true at all! I completely forgot about a set of still figures I did just for fun and as a change of pace. I still have a few of them left. I’ll blog about those separately, as they seem to deserve it, but suffice to say that they are little people around 3″ tall that have marbles as heads. Their bodies and attending accoutrements are of stainless steel, mostly 1/8″ rod like my rolling ball sculptures, but also some smaller wire as well as some flat sheet here and there.

Following my still figures and the end of the holidays I decided it was high time to get back to work on rolling ball sculpture. I had purchased a small batch of special hand made marbles. After looking over them carefully I realized that they were ideally suited for small sculptures. In addition, I have been wanting to increase the rate of growth of my portfolio. The larger pieces are wonderful, but they can take several months of free time to complete. I wanted to experiment with doing smaller works as well as make a statement about my abilities in completing a project in a shortened frame of time. These smaller pieces would also be an opportunity for those with smaller budgets – or display space – to take part in my art work.

To that end I have been working at a somewhat fevered pace and have completed several sculptures since I began in January. Making the videos takes its own time, so that has lagged a bit, but I’ve finally gotten my resources together for that work as well, and I am now able to present to you a completed video of one of the small pieces, titled “Subside-to-Side,” as well as a teaser at the end showing two of the other works that will soon have their own feature videos. I do hope you enjoy them.

“Subside-to-Side” is the first piece in which I’ve utilized sequential ball drops as their own element. They turned out quite nicely, and I think they figure well against the spirals at the beginning and end. It is listed on my web site and available for sale, so drop in and have around. Enjoy!

“Opportunity” Rolling Ball Sculpture Completed!

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It has taken me nearly a year and a half to create, but my largest, most ambitious rolling ball sculptured, “Opportunity,” is finally complete! A commission received back in November of 2011 started the whole project moving. Since it was of a size and scope that I’d not tackled before, I had to make some adjustments. I had to tear out a shower that someone had built in my basement back in the 60s. I had to install more shop lighting. I had to build a wooden frame onto which I could mount the sculpture as I built it. There was a lot of work to be done before any work got done!

Finally, however, it got down to the real sculpture work, and I learned how to square a frame and how to weld a frame without having it tweak itself out of alignment. That was the barest tip of the iceberg in all the learning experiences I had with this piece, and some of them felt extremely unpleasant. I’m the wiser for it, however, and even when things seemed at their worst, even when I welded something on and then hated it and wanted to tear it off (friends said leave it alone, so I did, and they were right), I kept moving forward and the end result is nothing short of fantastic!

This piece is exactly the sort of thing I wanted to build when I first laid eyes on Eddie Boes’ “Island Exploration” video. It’s the sort of work I’ve been dying to do even when I was first learning on copper at my dining room table. I was able to push myself farther, create more, show the world more of what I am capable of building than with anything previous. And you know what? I’ve still barely scratched the surface. This one is wonderful, and I am happy and proud to have completed it, but if you think I’m going to rest on my laurels, well, you couldn’t be more wrong.

The response to this video has, in the space of hardly a week, been outstanding for me personally. Over 1,000 views already, and it hasn’t stopped! Please take a look, share it with friends and add a comment if you like. It would be a big help toward me pursuing my art and creating even grander pieces.

New Sculpture Video! It’s a Ringer.

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I am excited to report that I have recently completed a small rolling ball sculpture. This piece had several new challenges for me. For starters, it is a very small piece, measuring 6″x11.5″x6.5″. That’s not a lot of space in which to make things interesting! To accomplish that I used several pieces of scrap steel that I claimed out of the scrap heap at work. Visually, this piece has some real fun stuff going on.

Secondly, the sculpture is composed entirely of mild steel, which means it will rust if not coated with something that serves as a moisture barrier. I could have used standard paint, but that would wear away after a while where the marble rolls. Plus, regular paint just isn’t what I wanted to use, and I didn’t want it to change the color of the metal. I really wanted it to not look like it was painted! It took some internet searching, some phone calls, some driving, plus a little hit-and-miss investigation, but I feel fortunate to have found a place that was actually excited about taking on my odd little challenge to them: “See, it has this marble that rolls around, and the marble hits one part and rings. It has to keep that ring even after it has been painted.” They actually got a kick out of that whole idea, gave me a nice trial price to allow me to test their electrostatic paint process, and I’m pleased to say this thing looks fantastic! You can’t tell it has been painted, and the ring is great! Things went so well I am planning on doing a series of these pieces priced right around $175.

At any rate, I’ll let the video fill in all the blanks. Likely you are really curious to see what I’m fussing about.

Dremel Finishing Abrasives for Metal Sculpture

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I have been experimenting with several different small abrasive buffs for my Dremel. I used these to clean up the discolored spots on a welded stainless steel sculpture as I wanted this piece to look rather uniform in color. I took the time to make notes on which ones I liked for my own reference, but it occurs to me that others may benefit from this information, so I decided to make a post out of it. As with anything of this nature, you may have different preferences as far as finish goes. These are the tools I tried and my impression of how they suited my needs. Maybe it will give you a good start in your search for some appropriate abrasives for your project.

NOTE: When I reference “my finish” I should state that the sculpture pieces were individually cleaned with a scrub pad before they were welded together. The piece overall had a satin sort of look to it, so this was what I was looking to duplicate when cleaning weld joints.

Dremel 512E – Fine Grit (320) Buff – Good results. Removes discoloration acceptably and leaves a clean satin finish that is close to the finish already present on my sculpture.

Dremel EZ473 SA – 220 Grit Detail Brush – This tool looks like a fan wheel made of curved rubber fingers. It leaves a clean satin finish. It does not seem to remove any metal. It gets some spots that a buff cannot reach, but it misses others. It is rather durable and lasts a fair while, probably as long as a buff or possibly a bit longer. It is acceptable as a buff substitute.

Dremel 530 – Stainless Steel Brush – This tool has stiff bristles and looks just like a tiny wire wheel. (Dremel makes a standard steel brush, but don’t use it on a stainless as it will discolor the metal and contaminate it as well.) The stainless steel brush works well on tough spots, but the brush itself is narrow and touches only a small area. It is not good for large areas as you end up with a brindled or sort of tiger-stripe look when trying to even out the appearance of the finish. It will get in narrow spaces well.

Dremel 511E – Package combines one Medium on Coarse Abrasive Buff – Why they don’t sell just

New sculpture video!

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I am very pleased to announce that I have completed a video of my latest sculpture, Triangle Twist. This is the first all-steel piece that I have completed and the first to have a decent quality video made of it as well. It is all stainless steel with 1/8″ rod for the main track plus some stouter rod for the pyramid frame. I also threw in some perforated sheet stainless for some fun visual variety. Take a look below, and feel free to comment and let me know what you think. If you care to purchase this piece, you may find further information on my main site here: http://tomharold.com/works/948091/triangle-twist

You may also subscribe to my Youtube channel for future video updates, and I have a Facebook page that you can “like” for other info as well.

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoy the video.

Making Changes, Moving Forward

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It has been long coming that I made some changes in my web presence. To that end I have put together a site dedicated solely to representing finished pieces of my art, both past and those awaiting homes. It is currently located here. The new site will enable those who want to purchase my art a simple way to access it, make inquiries and purchases. You, my wonderful readers, will still be able to come here and read about my musings on creativity and overcoming obstacles in the creation of art. For clarity, I’ll state: the blog is not going away! It will continue as it always has, but with the added feature of being a communication arm of my art site. I will be making some changes to the appearance of the blog as well, but that will not affect the content or my delivery of it in any way.

In other news, I am working hard on completing another piece of sculpture. It’s smaller in size and easily fits on a desktop. I have plenty of pics and will post a write up and photos as soon as I am able. This one was not commissioned and will be available for sale to the general public, so check back in to see what I’ve cooked up!

Getting things done

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Doing this kind of work, lots of times there just isn’t “the way that it’s done.” Sure, there might be “a” way that it’s done, but not “the” way. And lots of times a way that worked before won’t work again, because something else is different, like now you’re against a wall whereas before you had plenty of space behind the thing, or before you had plenty of running room following the thing you want to do, but this time you only have, say, three inches, and the ball will be going much to fast to make that happen, whatever “that” or anything else may be.

I’m sure you get my point. Lots of times I take photos for my own remembrance of things…although cataloging them would probably be an excellent idea. Well, never mind that for now, at least many of them are showing up here. Matthew Gaulden and Vic Chaney both mentioned specifically that it’s important to write down how you figured out a way to solve a problem, because lots of times you come across that same problem again, but you can’t remember how you solved it the first time!

Here’s a common problem: holding a couple things together so they can be welded. I solved it in a rather unstupendous but quick and easily repeatable way. I used a bunch of my steel blocks (again I say “YES” to my wonderful habit of picking these things up on instinct whenever I run across one) and just stacked them all up so they would hold these two pieces of solid bent rod in alignment long enough for me to tack weld them.

It’s really hard to see (I congratulate myself on making a very close joint!), but look at the small stretch of rod that is closest to the table’s surface and positioned between the two sets of blocks. If you look closely you can see the parting line where those two pieces have yet to be welded. It turned realllllly nicely, I am very happy to say. That doesn’t always happen. It worked, though, and this thing now holds up a couple of different pieces of the sculpture, including two loops from the loop-the-loop section. It holds up some neater stuff that I’ll show a bit later. Until then, best of luck in your creative pursuits.

rolling ball sculpture construction