Our school switched to distance learning two weeks ago. It is a blessing and a curse at the same time, because I can work on my illustration projects, but at the same time I’m not able to do my best in school. Since we have to accommodate our curriculum to the current situation, our teacher decided this would be a good time to learn about wax carving.
So what is wax carving? It’s basically shaping wax to make a mould for metal casting.
Essentially, a wax is shaped, then submerged into plaster, then melted to produce a hollow form in the plaster. This hollow form is then filled with molten metal.
Here is a Wikihow-article on plaster casting that you can browse through, it will give you much clearer picture on the process.
Our curriculum didn’t allow us to go as far as plaster pour stage, but we did manage to carve quite a bit of wax.
The most basic equipment for starting on wax carving:
Waxes, sculpting tools, sanding paper and measuring devices.
Waxes come in different colors and hardnesses: Green wax is usually the hardest, it also quite brittle. Red wax is also called cheesewax because it is like the wax on a wheel of cheese.
I have to say, I’m not sure about wax carving. I find the messiness and dust from wax more disturbing to the design process. I think it’s because of my creator personality: I like to machine jewelry instead of mould it to create its shape.
Wax is shaped with different types of carving tools. Some of the better ones are made by Kate Wolf, and can be found on her website. Go get inspired!
Green wax carving. I was trying to attain a pendant shape, without the bail. 
top view. Green wax can take different shapes, from sculptural to soft natural shapes. 
Pink wax. This wax is easy to shape when heat is applied to wax. 
My attempt at a hexagon ring. I love geometry in jewelry. 
Tip: keep your different colored wax shavings separate in order to re-purpose them later. 
Forming red wax, as you can tell it is more play-dough-like in viscosity.
I have also had time to think about the visual representation of my business, and I created a logo as well as business cards. Hope you enjoyed this short introduction to wax carving, and I will share my next post in 2021.
Here’s some serious inspiration for you if you’re interested to see what can be attained with wax carving: Ilgiz.com.
