A pair of replica Liver Birds are set to take flight to the Tropics this winter after being created by a sculptor for a Liverpool businessman's holiday home.
Rebecca Ainscough is from Wigan but was educated in Merseyside and attended the University in Liverpool. She said she "fell in love" with sculpture as an art form at 15, when her mother surprised her with a trip to Paris.
Although creating a replica of the Liver Birds was "alien" to Rebecca, who usually focuses on the naked form in her work, the project "presented an exciting challenge".
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She said: "I learned so much from the experience.
"There were many factors to consider in the process. The first challenge was how to achieve a scale reproduction; the birds are not easy to access and measure, being 322 feet in the sky, so the extrapolation of scale had to be done using photographs and videos taken from drones.
"Finding a consistent number of these, taken from the correct lateral angle and the correct longitudinal angle, were not easy to come by."
Once Rebecca had collected the pictures, she printed them all off to a similar size to take measurements, which were then collated together, although she admits maths is "not her strongest asset".
She added: "The next challenge was assessing the best size for the building that they are destined for. Too big and the building would need too much reinforcement in the roof, and too small they would not be visible from the ground. There is also the wingspan and wind load to consider; hurricanes are common in their new home."
The birds are about a seventh the size of their Scouse counterparts; 120cm wide, 78cm high and 45cm deep. And as they'll be closer to the ground than Bertie and Bella, this gave Rebecca the opportunity to add more detail.
She told The ECHO: "This was made easier, in part, by the use of materials. The original birds are made directly in hammered copper sheet, while I created the birds in clay, to be cast in bronze."
The casting process took place at Bronzecast Foundry in Ormskirk .
The birds are now set to make the trip across the Atlantic to hotter climates and "will be able to look out over the ocean back to where they originated from".
However, Rebecca said they won't be travelling first class with her as a chaperone: "The current plan is to build wooden crates around them and send them by air freight."
What started off as a new challenge for Rebecca could now become something bigger, with the sculptor considering making more replica birds for sale and she said she has already had "several enquiries".
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