• A brick layer in stone

    sculpture, vM
    stratenmaker hammer

    I started with the next assignment, a stone statue of (and for) a road worker. It's been a busy time, with carving the granite tomb I reported on earlier, the final work on the black granite panipitha and a set of finials and stone masonry in limestone.

    rough sketch in plasticine for a stone statue of a road worker
    Saw model for stone sculpture of road worker in pirschuim

    First I modeled in plasticine a sketch model for the brick layer. After approval, I enlarged that with compasses and scale calipers in 1:3, in green pir foam. It's a pretty crude sawing model, which I'm going to use to quickly saw the big outlines. Because pir foam is very soft , I coated it with polyester to give it a hard top layer. The next few days I'm going to start cutting and carving. Earlier, I have already split a block of dolomite from which I will carve it. I was originally planning on sculpting the statue in the direct carving method, but this is much faster and easier. But much direct carving work still remains, because this model is not very detailed and slightly too bulky, so I still have a lot of leeway when carving. That keeps it interesting!

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    Bonus: matching music: street paver at sea:

  • Stonemasonry work: Carving profiles in granite

    PP2, temple

    Actually, the work that I am doing now on the black-granite panipitha is not so much sculpting, but stonemasonry parts. With a lot of sawing and bush hammering I'm carving the ogee profile on the four sides of the block of granite .

    stone masonry: profiles chop saw for panipitha in black granite

    On the basis of the previous designs I have created an exact profile template for this, that I can draw on both sides, after which I can take away the excess material, with the saw, hammer and chisel. The material is tough and carving takes quite some time. And of course it should be accurate, and that means working precise and a lot of measuring. It starts to take shape a little bit. On purpose, I left too much material for the spout; which will be defined at a later stage.

    A good knowledge of stone masonry techniques always comes in handy, even in jobs when you're not actually carving in stone. Because of the stone mason's training I have learned how to tackle these kinds of shapes systematically. It's just like the knowledge of secondary school: at the time I often wondered what the use for a lot of the subjects was. 'I will never use that again later anyway', I thought at the time. But with these kinds of projects, and with enlargements, I find that I actually apply quite some maths lessons. Beginners lessons, that is, I've never been a high flyer.

    Same with stone mason's techniques. I never even think about it twice, but after working with them for all those years, these are things I execute automatically. Without that background one would often be lost or messing about because you don't know how to go about it. So that half year's training in Utrecht wasn't wasted…

    Tip: in this earlier message a play list is embedded with video's of the most important stone mason's techniques for flat planes.

    Nasty the first message about this project.
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