Accidents inevitably happen and my animal sculptures are no exception. Be it cats or cleaners (the main culprits) or even (on one memorable occasion) a sheep! All is not lost, however, as I offer an animal sculpture mending service, which in nearly all cases is completely invisible. I can organise for my art courier to collect your sculpture and deliver it to my studio in Devon or, if you prefer, you can bring it to me in person. I charge a modest amount depending on the complexity of the break. Once your animal sculpture has been restored to its former glory, my art courier can then deliver it to your home.

I was recently contacted by a client who had a badly broken ear on a hare sculpture. As you can see from the photo above, the end of the ear was chipped but, worse still, the ear had been knocked off and glued back unsuccessfully, leaving an unsightly gap. Needless to say, this is not to be recommended, particularly if the break is not clean, as animal sculpture mending is a skilled job. I had to carefully remove the old glue and use my own products to fix the ear back in place and fill the gap. I then retouched the surface so it all married together (see photo right). My client was very pleased with the result.

I run a number of animal sculpture workshops every year and successfully fire the students’ work, pack them carefully and despatch them a little later. In all the time I have been running these workshops I have never had any problems during the firing, because I raise the temperature very gradually to allow both heat and water vapour to move gently through the clay. Only once in the last ten years have I ever encountered a problem, and it concerned a client’s particularly nice bloodhound sculpture.

This was no minor accident either (see photo left after I had roughly reassembled the pieces). The sculpture literally exploded in the kiln. Looking through the broken pieces afterwards, I found a staple stuck in the clay, which was probably the cause of the explosion.

Normally, an accident of this severity would be beyond saving, but Dave’s dog sculpture was so good I had to give it a go. After a very long evening basically doing a 3D jigsaw, Dave’s bloodhound sculpture was resurrected. Once the repair had been finished and the surface was completely smooth again (see photo below) Dave was able to have his sculpture cast in bronze resin.

If you’ve had an accident with your animal sculpture and would like to make use of my animal sculpture mending service, please contact me to discuss your repair, and we should have your animal sculpture looking like his old self in no time.