Cat's Eye Carving

Flute, a portrait of an Owl

I was asked to carve an Owl, a White Faced Owl from the Congo, Flute looks very cute but in fact he is a rat hunter.

I have put the photo and the finished carving together so you can see the 2 next to each other!

As you can see I made a drawing from the photograph.

The tricky bit was to carve his rather fluffy moustache-especially in relief! I could have carved it in a very shallow relief as I did with the horse portrait but this required slightly less fragile stone such as the beautiful Forest red.

The next stage was to carve all around the outline to give myself a platform to carve into.

As I cut further into the stone it becomes clear that I have to cut down further in order to create the features. I cut all around the base of the island of stone in order to cut the depth back. All the while drawing on the stone and referring to all the photos that I was working from.

Once I had removed the excess stone I sanded the background surface to ensure there was a contrast between the stone and the carving.

Flute decided that it would be a good idea to perch on his carving!!