Cat's Eye Carving

Demonstration Carving.

I am looking forward to spending some of my weekends demonstrating at a series of outdoor events.

My next outdoor event is at the Whitemill in Sandwich, one of the Cinque Ports in Kent. It takes place on the 8th of May and coincides with national Mills Weekend.

I will be demonstrating my historic craft and I have started a carving of a Cushion Capital, an integral part of historic architecture. This rough sketch gives you an idea of where it would go, the pillar below it and springer stones for an arch above it.

I have started the carving out of a cube of Tetbury limestone, it couldn’t be too big as I need to transport it between the variety of outdoor events that I will be doing.

I have chosen something that is identifiable as stonemasonry but also allows me the freedom to be creative, I am carving it in such a way that I can incorporate beasties on each corner. This rough sketch gives you an idea of what I am imagining.

The first thing I need to do is carve the round shape at the top, this is done by carving a series of chamfers, cutting the corners off then cutting the smaller ones until it becomes circular.

Once the top is shaped then I can carve the bottom ring and start to draw on how the beasties will appear.

As this is something I will be working on over the coming months I will update my website with my progress after each event.