The Journey to Bronze

The Journey to Bronze – Elephants
September 10, 2026

An elephant’s rumble is something you don’t just hear – you can almost feel it. It is a deep, powerful sound that can travel enormous distances, and is one of the ways they communicate with one another.

My first encounter with elephants was at Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya in 1996, and it was during my time there that I decided I wanted to be a sculptor. Watching elephants at Lewa gave me my first opportunity to observe them at close quarters from the back of an old, borrowed Land Rover. The hours I spent watching elephant enabled me to notice the way they move, how they interact with one another and how differently each individual behaves.

For me, following and studying my subject at first hand is the most important part of sculpting wildlife. Photographs and videos are incredibly useful back at the studio, but nothing replaces seeing an animal in its natural environment.

My most recent elephant research trip took me to Tanzania in 2025 with Nomad Tanzania. I was able to spend a great deal of time studying elephants in the wild, in both the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti. Being able to watch herds of elephant at close quarters, while still giving them plenty of space, was an incredible experience. I was able to make small maquettes while observing them, as well as taking photographs and video.

I studied their anatomy closely. An elephant is the largest mammal on earth, and there is an incredible subtlety to the way it moves. The shifting of its weight, the movement of its shoulders, the way the trunk hangs or reaches out, the position of the ears – all these things change constantly and signify how the elephant feels. It is these observations that eventually make their way into a sculpture.

When I returned to the studio after the trip, all those observations from Tanzania – and those that had stayed with me from Kenya previously – became incredibly important.

The photographs and maquettes I make while travelling are key, as they remind me of what I have seen. They are especially helpful with getting the anatomy right, and also the sense of weight, movement and presence that I want to convey in my elephant sculptures.

One of the pieces I am particularly pleased with is my Elephant Mother and Calf 2025. Elephants are highly social animals, and the bond between members of a family group is fascinating to watch. There is something incredibly powerful about the relationship between a mother elephant and her young.

I also created Elephant Calf 2025 and Elephant Adolescent 2025, sculptures inspired by the boisterous young elephants I observed in the Ngorongoro Crater and Reteti elephant sanctuary in Kenya. Young elephants have such wonderful character. They are inquisitive, playful and, compared with the adults, still learning how to use that extraordinary trunk. After I made the elephant calf sculpture, I thought it would lend itself well to jewellery, so it has been scanned down and is also now available as a pendant in both silver and gold.

Elephant Bull Large 2025 was inspired by an elephant I saw while on foot in Kenya. He was across a river bed from us; he was restless and broody and at one point we thought he might charge us!

The journey from seeing an animal in the wild to eventually seeing it cast in bronze is a long one. It starts with observation and research, but ultimately it’s about trying to capture something of the animal’s character and presence. An elephant may be standing completely still in bronze, but I hope you can still sense the movement, the weight and the life within it. And perhaps, if you stand close enough, you might even imagine that you can hear that extraordinary rumble.

Sculpting Elephants 2026

Northern Rangelands Trust, Kenya

I have just returned from another visit to the Northern Rangelands Trust in Kenya. As a sculptor, studying wildlife in its natural habitat is the only way to understand an animal. The NRT's work is making a real difference to preserving those habitats. And this has a favourable impact on the people and animals that live there too.

Hamish with box of sculpting kit for Tanzania

27 Feb, 2025

Getting ready for a trip to Tanzania

Tanzania is a country I have never visited before, so I am very excited about going. I have a variety of animals I would like to see and sculpt on this trip, including hippo, ostrich, elephant, giraffe and cheetah.

14 Jun, 2018

Il Ngwesi Conservancy, Kenya

In my last blog post I told you about my trip to Kenya and conservancies of the Northern Rangelands Trust. While I was there in May, I visited another NRT project – the award winning Il Ngwesi Conservancy Lodge, owned and run by the Maasai community.

14 Sep, 2018

The Sculptor as Photographer

Now, I can view images on my laptop taken earlier the same day. This has been especially valuable for getting the most out of research trips. It is so easy to then bring those images and films from the field back into my studio.