Cat's Eye Carving

Sampson, a portrait of a Harris Hawk

Here is the photo of my latest commission, I carved him in a piece of A4 sized Welsh slate.

The carving is very shallow relief only about a quarter inch deep, the difficulty was ensuring that I didn’t make him look friendly and this was achieved by making sure the eyebrow was the right angle.

Reliefs are particulary difficult to carve as although they are 3 dimensional one can only view them from the front to see them correctly, as there is very little depth viewing them from the side would reveal almost nothing. The shadows must be cast right.

I used the photo that I had taken but also one of Sampson’s sister Quickly to get the height of the tail right but also give me some indication as to the shape of the chest as Sampson was full after his lunch!

Here’s one of me holding Sampson.