Cat's Eye Carving

Carving a face

For me as a sculptor in stone I strive to become better with each carving.

I sometimes create clay models to practise and understand the form which is easier as I can put back the clay if I don’t like it but obviously with stone I can’t.

This is a practise portrait of no one in particular and it is out of my imagination. I am carving directly with no drawing or maquette to work from.

As you are probably aware once I remove the stone I can’t put it back so by searching for the best way to carve an eye ball with eyelids or a mouth that looks like it will open eventually I will get it just right.

This is a very exciting journey, as I look back at previous carvings I can see how to improve them for next time.

The various types of stone make a huge difference, the amount of detail obtainable depends on how course the stone is.

This is a piece of Sandstone from St Bees in Cumbria. It is very dense with fine particles making it suitable for a greater amount of detail.

There are no fossils to intefere with the detail but at the same time it is not fine or dense enough to polish. I would need marble to achieve that type of finish.

As you can see this is still very much a work in progress but without this type of developmental carving I would not improve.