I was able to carve The Three Hares motif on a piece of Tetbury limestone which is now for sale in my workshop.

This event starts on Friday 18th June-Schools Day and finishes on Sunday 20th June.

I will be demonstrating stone carving and letter cutting on all 3 days, 18th, 19th and 20th June. I will be taking a selection of carvings with me for sale, including faces, The Green Man, flowers, leaves, as well as my smaller gift items, trinket bowls, tealight holders and coasters!

I will have my credit card machine with me and would be happy to discuss ideas for commissions with you!

I will be in The Forgotten Skills Tent, the Yellow entrance side of the showground.

Hope to see you there!

There will be an open day from 11am-4pm on Saturday 3rd July, which is free, and then there will be a charge for entry from then on.

For more details about this event, please visit:-

www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-thekymin-2

To launch the sculpture exhib there will be an open day on Sat 3rd July. I will be demonstrating and selling in this beautiful National Trust park. My friend and colleague, Missfire, will be putting a sculpture in as well being there on the launch day!

The theme is The Art of the Picnic- hence the Peach, a symbol for me of a glorious hot Summer, I am carving just the half so that I can carve the stone as well which will be carved separately from a piece of Forest of Dean Sandstone-the flesh is carved in Tetbury limestone.

For more information visit The National Trust Website.

I will post photos as soon as it is finished.

I am using a beautiful piece of hard Tetbury limestone from Veizeys Quarry. It has some very interesting fossils running through it, I have found a piece of coral, some beautiful shells and loads of Gastropods!

Having The Gloucester Geological Conservation Trust at The Tithe barn centre is  really exciting for me as I am always finding interesting fossils-they also help to give me a greater understanding of the stone that I am carving!

These photos show you how the stone was before I started carving.
The surface was speckled with beautiful small gastropods-small spiral fossils. Once I had chipped off this layer-which was actually quite sad, I uncovered a beautiful consistant limestone. On 2 opposite sides there was a sparkly layer of Calcite-crystallised stone and the cement that holds the ooliths together.

This was tricky to chip off as it is incredibly hard, with the underlying stone was  hard as well.

I had a drawing to work from, but this soon became redundant as I developed the shapes and followed the forms.

The next series of photos shows the stone as I am carving it now. Using my engine crane and blocks I was able to stand the carving up. The previous photos show the carving laying on it’s back. There was only so much I could do with the stone in this position.

Hopefully you can see the shapes beginning to form. At the moment all the carving that I have done has been with the punch and hammer-obviously I do start off with the pitching chisel, but this is only for a short while.

As the roughing out process develops, I can start to introduce other chisels. The claw to start to refine the surfaces, the draft or inch chisel to introduce the lines and clarify the developing forms. This can be seen more in the next series of photos.

Obviously there is still plenty of work to do, so as soon as there are more photos, I will show them in a new post.

There were 6 of us with differing skill levels, we all had a ft cubed piece of Fishhill limetone from Broadway in the Cotswolds. It was very shelly and quite difficult to carve!

This year there was no theme, one stonemason carved an Avocado in 2 halves, another one did a Monkey, I carved my devil grotesque, there was a lovely Scarab Beetle, so it was very varied.

The Marquee that we were working in was in the heart of the fair and so we were well received by the general public all itching to know everything about our carvings, the stone and how we came to be stonemasons!

We must have talked to about 300 people on Saturday, as well as working to a very tight deadline of 3pm on the following day.

Some of us stayed overnight, and we joined the Medieaval village by their campfire for some wine and good company. Knowing we had to make a good start in the morning we turned in for the night.

Come Sunday morning, we were pretty tired, taking part in an event such as this is exhausting and exhilerating, adrenalin helps to keep us going and work twice as fast to create something which would normally take 3 or 4 days!!

I had made a good start on Saturday, so this enabled me to finish in time.

The judges came round, so while they were deliberating, I went and had some well deserved ice cream!!!

All the carvings were put into a silent auction and the money raised went to Gloucester Cathedral and The Pied Piper appeal.

Finally they had finished and to my surprise I was awarded 1st prize!!! what a great finish to a great weekend!!

Hope you like my carving!

This is the clay model I will be working from!

The carvings will be auctioned off on Sunday afternoon in aid of Gloucester Cathedral and The Pied Piper appeal.

There are many more attractions, Wood carving, a Medieaval Village, Craft stalls, live music and entertainment, classic cars and much much more.

Come along, the weather forcast is good, and you never know, you may win one of the carvings! There will be about 10 of us carving so the range of carvings should be quite broad.

For more information, visit, www.highnamcourtspringfair.co.uk

Hope to see you there!

10am-5pm everyday.

For more details, give me a ring 07795 495170 or email me carrie@catseyecarving.co.uk

Obviously I am open all the time, please check my opening times for more details.

Also on the last Bank Holiday in May, there will be the 1st Open Garden at The Brockworth Court. We will be open all weekend from 10am-5pm.

She is carved from Portland limestone and stands just over 2ft high by 7″ square.

The wave forms that have become a theme in my carvings are something that I am going to explore further in my next carvings.