Cat's Eye Carving

Dog portrait part II

By taking measurements from the plaster cast I am able to map the important points on the stone and using my saw and hammer and chisels I can remove the excess stone.

I have a template that I put the model on I line up my squares and sliding squares to identify the one point, which is the height from the base, the distance in from the side and the distance in from the front-the three dimensions.

As you can see the more points I identify the more detail I can carve on the stone and the closer I get to carving an exact replica of the plaster model.

In effect I am mapping out points in three dimensions and then joining the dots. There is a certain element of visual mapping, I have to trust my eyes by comparing the points to each other and making sure that they look right. I also use calipers to check that my measurements line up with each other.

This commission represents approximately 130hrs work.