Raising the tiger.

The winch is in place and takes little effort to raise such a massive structure.  There is, however, a balancing act. We have decided for both the safety of myself and the interns not to put the tiger on all of the rocks while working on it.  You can see by the digital sketch there is a good 3 feet of rock that we have from the bottom of the lowest foot to the bottom of the sculpture. This has already been sculpted and the sections come apart so that we don't have to raise the tiger on the entire rock to sculpt it.  Instead, the lowest foot will rest on a rolling base while we sculpt. The other two paws will be put on the individual rocks they go with.  The lower portion of rock will be added at the foundry.

We are doing this for a couple of reasons.  One is the safety of being so high when we are working on a piece.  The other is that is much hotter at the top of the warehouse than it is on the ground.  This clay will melt at a higher temperature and so we are opting for this solution.  Actually, I have to commend my vendor who milled my design in foam.  It was a good solution to a problem I had not anticipated.

We section the sculpture to work on it.  The woman is sitting
on a ledge that is about 3' off of the ground.  This ledge is not
under the cat at the warehouse but off to the side.  

Adding the sculpted legs

Raising the tiger torso to meet the leg

I can't wait to get the paw and head on. 

Scaffolding is added to assist us in the
finishing of the sculpting.