Llittle praying man (flying buttress figurine for Eusebius Church)

Llittle praying man

I'm already quite busy again carving flying buttress 5 out of St. Eusebius's Church in Arnhem (the Netherlands). This series consists of a razorbill, a elephant, a sea lion, a Buffalo, a squirrel, a praying little man and for the third time the ark. From the description of the air arc images by the church:

‘First, the arches on the north side of the nave were cut. The statuettes came from the studio of Theo van Reijn and were virtually all carved by Eduard van Kuilenburg.

Design sketches and photos from the workshop have been preserved of a number of sculptures. Their theme was the Deluge. Given the rebuilding after the destruction, this was an obvious theme. Animals are depicted on the flying buttresses and the wall statues show Noah with the Ark in different phases, from its construction to the landing of the pigeon on the Ark.

The images from Van Reijn's studio are strongly inspired by images such as those found on St. John's Cathedral in Den Bosch and French cathedrals and cathedrals look traditional compared to later statues. Van Reijn died in 1954, before he could begin designing the figurines for the arches on the south side of the ship.‘

Clumsy

This praying little man would not be very popular in most shoe stores, for he had two left feet. I hope you will forgive me that I fixed that…

All the old flying buttress figurines are being sold, by the way, to raise money to have their copies carved.. If you want to know why the statues are replaced, then read more here and here.

Nasty the following flying buttress image.
Video: how to carve a flying buttress statuette.