Cat's Eye Carving

Water Feature

I have sketchbooks full of designs that I will carve one day but I only have one pair of hands so you can imagine my delight when a customer chose one of my designs for their commission.

They wanted a swirly seashell wave form that could be built into a wall and have water run over it, I drew this 10 years ago and it is part of my ongoing fascination with fluid waves and seashell shapes.

Obviously the stone needs to be shaped before I can start to chisel out the inside to create the bowl shape, I used my hand saw and roughed off a chamfer, top right, from here I could start to see the shape developing.

I regularly referred back to my drawing and invited my customer in to have a look and see if there were any changes that they wanted to make before I proceeded. Obviously there is a point of no return. If you look at the drawing and the bottom left image you can see that the right side of the shape is higher and slightly mirrors the left side.

At this point I was able to use my core drill to help me achieve the depth and swirly shapes more efficiently.

While carving this I have to consider how the water flows around the sculpture and so I carved spirals and hollows to hold the water and help to direct it…I will only know the result of this once my customer tests it out, so maybe next year now. In order to create lightness but also interest I have carved through the spiral underneath. The stone resonated with a ring as I was chiselling it in the same way crystal or a bell would so I knew there were no faults in the stone.

Finally I needed to rinse the stone and wait for my customer to decide where the hole will be drilled. They loved it and I am looking forward to revisiting my design. Obviously it will be completely different but with the fluidity and movement that I love to carve.