Cat's Eye Carving

Portrait of a Horse in Welsh Slate.

I received a commission at the beginning of October to carve a portrait of a much loved horse. It was for a 30th Birthday present and the young girl has had the horse since he was 3yrs old.

The owner brought me in some photos to work from, her favourite recent pose of Sam the horse-he is still alive by the way in case you are worried!

I chose a suitable piece of Welsh slate about A4 size, enlarged the photo and drew on the outline.

It is very important with slate to remove only a small amount at a time to avoid any breakages. So as you can see I carve around the outline of the horse and remove some of the background slate before attempting to carve any detail.

I created an imaginary background to help add depth.

It is very difficult to create the illusion of depth when carving shallow relief so lines must be over accentuated.

Finally once I am happy with  the finished carving I treated the slate with Linseed oil to bring up the colour and enhance the definition.