Today on the course starts out nice and slowly. We're due to begin preparing our pieces to be cast, but lots of people are still carving amazing creations, so we're a bit behind.

This doesn't worry me in the slightest. The big room we're working in is filled with work to look at and be inspired by, books to peruse and friendly fellow students to chat with and learn from. Already I'm dreading when the week will be over.

With nothing to do on my piece until further notice I take the opportunity to spend a morning playing with wax and start to carve myself a ring. I have no particular shape in mind but am letting it grow organically as I remove and add wax, shape and distort, play and experiment. All is going well until I'm removing a large piece of wax from inside the ring and suddenly tip a reservoir of molten wax that had built up into my hands whereupon some of it promptly sticks to my flesh burning me. Ouch is not the word. I spend the next couple of hours with my hands in and out of very cold water trying to ease the pain whilst also getting on with some work. Fortunately most of my hands were oily so a lot of the wax flowed straight off, but where it stuck blisters quickly.

This experience somewhat puts me off working with heat for the day and I instead sit at a bench and slowly carve hard wax with cold tools whilst chatting and checking out what everyone else is up to.

At about 4pm it's time to get my piece ready. The next stage of the process is 'investment' which involves making a plaster mould which is then put in a kiln. This fires the plaster and melts the wax, which disappears leaving a perfect impression in the plaster. It's into this impression that tomorrow we'll pour molten bronze. To aid this pouring, and the removal of oxygen which would cause problems and bubbles if not able to escape easily from the mould, we need to add 'runners and risers'. You can see more about the 'lost-wax' method of casting here.

Despite my fears of working with heat I manage to add my runners and risers nice and neatly. My piece will be sharing a mould with someone else, as we both have small work to be cast, and unfortunately at some point wax drips onto my work. This may not seem a problem but of course every single piece of wax on my piece will end up as rock-hard bronze.... Unfortunately I'm out of time and have to head home so leave with my fingers crossed that there won't be too much bronze removal to do when the piece is fired.