• Assigning the volumes

    vanH, coat of arms
    Left griffin crude carving

    The precarving of a sculpture has to do with roughly defining the desired volumes. This means that I determine where the mass of a component should approximately be, without going into details too much. At this stage it is mainly about figuring out whether all parts are in harmony with each other.

    I am currently working on the coat-of-arms, and since this is a relief, I divide it into small pieces. A tail, a hind leg, the shield, the wings, each small part is carved like a separate puzzle piece. That is possible because I have several reference points: the lines I've carved into the stone are still on the remaining parts of the relief, and the drill holes also indicate fairly accurately where everything has to go. I don't need to determine their position over and over again, because I all captured those at an earlier stage . I only need to concern myself with the height and curves. Hence I only do the precarving at first ; if I would completely finish it and then later discover that it has to come down a lot more, I have to do everything all over again.

    I've just about carved one Griffin now , but that is in relation to the shield and the compartment on which it stands. The shield again is in relation to the helmet, so if I later discover that the shield still has to come down a lot more, I also need to re-carve the legs of the Griffin. That's why I haven't been undercutting all the parts yet; they have all been carved perpendicular to base material, so I always have room left to carve deeper. I only chop away the material from under the legs when I know that everything is properly in place. The next part is the helmet, and only when that's ready I will know if everything is to my liking. The other half is just a mirrored copy.

    Sandstone is very pleasant to carve in, but it is not good for your lungs. That's why I use an air helmet, and keep the stone wet. Another advantage is that wet sandstone is easier to carve. It still remains very sunny and hot for the time being, and you can tell by the stone itself: I keep making it wet, but it dries out again in an instant .

    Nasty the first message about this project.
    Nasty the next post about this project.

  • Drilling holes

    vanH, coat of arms

    When carving reliefs I like to start with ‘jig sawing‘: carving the contours pretty tight and perpendicular, right up to the background material of the relief. The diamond drill is a handy tool for that. I usually drill lots of holes to the correct depth, so I don't need to measure how deep the relief is and where all the parts have to go. So that is what I did today.

    • coat of arms, family crest carved in Elm wood, coat of arms relief
    • crest stone with coat of arms, coat of arms embossed in stone

    It was hot today, and the corn simply races out of the soil. And the flowers; in the context of subsidised 'natural field boundaries’ the farmer has sown a floral mixture and I see buckwheat, bluebottle, vetches and I don't know what more start growing near my shop. A beautiful work place. Finally, I started a little bit with shaping the deepest parts of the relief. I prefer to work from deeper to higher parts, and when finishing high to low. That's for a reason, but you will notice only when you try it yourself.

    Nasty the first message about this project.
    Nasty the next post about this project.

No more messages to show.

No more messages to show.