Precarving the stone street worker

Today I made good progress with the precarving of my sculpture of the paver. It is about 80 cms tall, out of green dolomite. After the pre-cutting with the saw machine I am now carving the rough outlines, detailing will follow later.

A precut sculpture does have the right volumes, but due to the limitations of the machine, there is still a lot of measuring work, chiselling and sawing work to be done. Fortunately, that has become a lot easier because already a lot of reference points are clear.

For clarification: to the left the stone statue, to the right the sawing model.

I approach this sculpture to a large extent via the direct carving method: the portions that have not yet been shaped I actually carve without measuring too much, and especially the details, which I also didn't define in the clay sketch and the pir foam model, I'm carving freehand. That will make it a lively sculpture, and I find the process enjoyable because while carving I encounter’ all kinds of small 'problems' and coincidences . I noticed that while doing that the cogs of the learning process were busily turning again.

Actually, the light under my tent is not ideal, and that shows in this picture. Now that is actually beneficial on this blog, that way it remains a bit of a surprise, but for carving, I would prefer a slightly cloudy day without a tent. The tent flattens all shades, so everything is not sharply defined anymore. Sculpting is actually shaping with shadows, so tomorrow I will go out from under the tent. Too bad it'll later get towards 30 degrees Celsius!

Direct, bright sunlight actually doesn't work well either, and that is the reason that the statue sits on a turntable. That way I can turn it in the best position, but most of all, I can turn it toward the best light.

After all that granite sculpting I have to looking for new glass in my spectacles, because the current have actually become more of a starry sky and that hinders visibility severely. But despite these small obstacles this one already is a very nice little sculpture, and also the carving itself on this sculpture is a very pleasant pastime. I will keep you informed of the developments!

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