Rolling Ball Sculpture - Ep3 - Finished Swan Sculpture 

Hi Ian, Speaking as someone who also tinkers with soldered copper wire - I make Puppets and some masks - I think your sculptures are gorgeous! However, if you’re looking for feedback, I can see a couple areas that you might tinker with and expand your repertoire: The first is doing more forged elements, as in using a ball-peen hammer to give texture and character to specific pieces of metal. I noticed this, particularly on the switch for your swan, where you have spiraled the copper into a press pad. You could consider taking another step and peening a texture into that spiral, which after polishing, would add extra character and catch the light. The second, which is actually easier, would be to begin incorporating other gauges of copper. You’ve stated in a previous video that you use two millimeter copper wire and it seems a shame not to begin incorporating 0.5, 1, 3, 4, and 4.5 mm wires as well. These would end up, adding texture and interest. Perhaps a jewelry quality to the work by wrapping support posts or other structures that don’t interfere with the ball movement. Finally, I think your supports are great, but perhaps a tad utilitarian. The way the support branches work reminds me a bit of the trees, drawn by the background artist, Eyvind Earle, for the Disney animated *Sleeping Beauty.* You may have seen these before, or if not, please google them because they are quite gorgeous. Adding a few superfluous branches to your supports can add a large amount of interest to the sculpture. Of course, your sculptures are quite good as they are! Please don’t feel that any of this is criticism! I only bring it up because I find myself becoming bored, personally, in my own work. Once I have reached a certain skill level with my work and looking for areas where I can add new challenges. This seems like a great opportunity for you to expand beyond your previous approaches and inject new excitement into your projects. I have subscribed, so I look forward to whatever you post, regardless of whether you take any of my suggestions. Every artist has their own aesthetics and path and it may be the case that none of my suggestions feel appropriate. I’m happy to see whatever you produce!

Very Nice.!!. Quite a different direction -and video.

You are an amazing artist. Beautiful work Ian. Thank you for sharing.

Bravo!

Hi Ian. I enjoyed the sculpture. Rolling ball sculptures are always so much fun. Thank you for the inset of the swans at the end. And thank you for sharing the video!

Great concept, beautifully done. Thanks for sharing

I liked it. Well done.

Very nice! I really like your work.

Good job, Ian!

too cool dude !

Beautiful design. Any thoughts of adding a solar panel to power a small motor and use a helical tower to reload mother goose automatically when the sun is shining. Wishing you a great day. Peace brother

I just checked your Etsy store. awesome stuff. but is it really 10K to ship to NYC?