Wax spiral maquette

Making Stairs actually melt

I need to see how a staircase would melt really in reality - so I made a model out of wax. Excuse the stair design, this was made when I was thinking about building spiral stairs. However I'm glad I didn't because trying to build straight stairs is hard enough!

But still using these moulds I made a wax model so I could melt and observe how the drips are formed and how the structure bends - to inform my studies and drawings on how to make wood appear to be melting.

I began by melting wax onto the staircase as I was afraid if I set the heat-gun on it straight away it would collapse. These created beautiful melted designs of the steps connecting / flowing onto one another.

I then began to set the heat-gun on it - the thinner drips were interesting, as gave the idea of movement - melting instead of thick stagnant icicles. However, the structure then soon gave way after this observation, I want to present my sculpture as though it's in the motions of melting down - frozen in a frame.

*This blog post has been back-dated for continuity purposes. Photographs and text were originally done in February 2012.