Cat's Eye Carving

Willow carving

11 March, 2025 – 10:34 am

This was an interesting commission, my customer asked me if I could carve a piece of willow that had lain outside for a few years it had been covered up, and the bark had offered some protection.

She had planted this tree in memory of her husband and sadly the tree died.

I made a small test on the wood, it was just carve-able, probably another year and I think that it would have gone too far, I had to treat it for woodworm.

Her idea was some creatures in and around the trunk, there was a branch stump that I could carve a small mouse curled up in and one further up that I carved into the nose of the Squirrel. Carving end grain is difficult, but I used sharp tools to cut across the grain.

Using the nature of the wood, I was able to carve the Owls feathers, the oil really brought out some beautiful colours.

The wood wasn’t rotten, but it was heading that way, so carving any real detail wasn’t possible, so I carved the shapes of the animals, working with the wood.

I treated the wood with raw linseed oil to help protect the carving as it is going to be put outside.

The spider in her web was a late addition.

Due to the quality of the wood, this was a challenging commission. but one I thoroughly enjoyed rising to.

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Compass Rose, part two.

5 March, 2025 – 12:49 pm

This commission should have been relatively straightforward, I couldn’t have foretold what would happen on the 4th Feb though.

Unfortunately I fell and broke my ankle, already 2 weeks behind because the quarry had forgotten to cut the stone, I was now in danger of missing the deadline of the end of March.

I had completed one of the quarters and got the next one up ready to carve.

After two weeks rest, I was taking strong painkillers, I decided that I could work with my leg up. The exhaustion that I felt after just a few hours work was un-imaginable. I’m healing and not working with my full body so of course I’m going to be tired.

These photos show the stage that I am up to with possibly another two weeks work. The Compass Rose will be in by the end of March though.

Normally I finish the whole commission before I start adding any paint, but there is nothing normal about this time in my career. I am having to adapt and work in ways I never knew, but I am tenacious and work hard in all aspects of my job. I have to keep in mind that I have broken my ankle, in two places, not just one and try and keep my foot elevated wherever possible.

Thankfully I have a strong nephew to move my stone around for me, I have a crane, but can’t do what I need to to use it. Once he’d swapped the stone over I got him to elevate one corner of the first quarter so I could wash it ready for painting.

The coat of arms has been gilded, I just need to tidy the excess gold off, there’s only one quarter to carve and paint the letters of, and then I need to finish the chopping out of the rebates for the compass points and the coat of arms.

I made a mould of the coat of arms before I painted and gilded it, this is so I can sell the casts in my shop, they will also be available to buy from the Guildhall museum in Sandwich, a proportion going back to the town council.

I am chopping the last inset on the above photo today and then the stones can be swapped over, it’s easier to drill the holes and chisel out the stone with it on my banker and easier to letter cut the last four letters upright on my sack lifter.

Home stretch now. I think another 10 days should do it, I struggle to work much more than 3-4 hours per day, but I’m getting there and this will be another carving testament to my ability, tenacity and resilience.

I would like to thank all my customers for their continued support and patience while this is going on. It really helps knowing that they are happy to wait for their commissions.

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Sculpture in St Paul’s Cathedral

2 March, 2025 – 9:35 am

We are not born knowing how to carve an angel’s wing, nor are we taught at college, or at least, they didn’t teach it on my degree. We can observe birds, but they don’t tend to sit still, it’s actually easier to learn from something already carved.

The wings on this angel are beautifully carved, but they look like they have been stuck onto it’s back, the Angel on the larger monument are much better.

At the time of this visit, I was carving my ‘Angel listening’ sculpture, and I was struggling with the wings. Looking at the sculptures, gave me the much needed information to complete my sculpture.

This carving isn’t perfect but it is a learning curve.

These interesting sculptures hanging in the nave were created to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of the 1st world war, they are in the form of white crucifixes and have small models of settlements that were destroyed in this conflict, they are a poignant reminder of all needless conflicts.

Beautiful carving in wood by Grinling Gibbons in the choir stalls, because he carved the details individually and joined them together, they can be more easily repaired.

Nelson’s tomb that can be found in the crypt.

I loved this creatures foot, marble allows so much fine detail due not only to it’s density, it’s incredibly fine make up, but also it’s translucent nature.

The flower carved around the urn on the outside of the building are inspirational, as stone carvers, we can’t carve real nature, it’s too fine and delicate, this is where our skill comes in, we carve it to look fine and delicate.

This set of photos show the skill of the early sculptors as opposed to the clumsy nature of the Henry Moore sculpture, it’s not that it is an abstract, but that it has a lumbering quality, indicative of art from that period in history, it doesn’t have a feeling of the love between Mother and child..

The second photo is a sculpture of John Donne, I based some of my early degree sculpture on his poems that I studied for A-level English.

Next in line is a beautiful monument to John Howard a prison reformer, you can read all about him and the other monuments here and J. M.W Turner, what I love about this sculpture is, that instead of trying to carve his instruments in the stone, they are made of wood.

Finally, and I love these picture, because the design and practicalities of carving transcend time.

During my art history lessons at college, we were shown images of some of the earliest statues, carved with a tree stump or a pillar to add stability and give the illusion of weightlessness. You can see this is the statues above, but it is also a method of creating fine carving such as the pigeons. The legs and the tail is supported by the body and the branch, there’s very little exposed fragile carving.

I had recently been commissioned to carve a pair of pigeons for a local pub and although I knew in my head what they would look like and had done a rough sketch, it’s can be difficult for the layperson to visualise in 3D. So you can imagine my delight when I saw what I was imagining and I was able to send a photo to my customers.

Obviously wood can take finer detail and more undercutting than the stone that I was carving.

Through history we learn from observation and while we may not get it right first time, like my angel wings, the next one will be better.

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Wren’s Churches, part two.

25 February, 2025 – 9:00 am

After a sit down in the Sunshine in Paternoster Square, we moved on to St Paul’s Cathedral.

This wonderful vision of Sir Christopher Wren, aided by his chief assistant and surveyor to the City of London, Robert Hooke. The first stone was laid in 1675, and although there was still work to do, it was opened in 1711.

As we entered through the crypt I was delighted to be shown Wren’s stonemason’s mark, something that connects us through time and will always give me goosebumps. Sadly the piece of stone that it is carved into is hiding behind an information board. It doesn’t tell you what is behind it, thankfully I had an expert tour guide.

The memorial stones for Wren and Hooke.

The magnificent Dome and the light the plain glass windows allows in, built out of Portland limestone, a wonderful hard white stone, allowing detail and sharpness to the beautifully carved stone.

Wren didn’t want the Dome painted but he was over-ruled.

The photos of these ceilings do not do justice to the magnificence of the images depicted.

This unassuming piece of stone is one of the survivors of the original medieval building. I recently watched an interesting documentary about the Great Fire of London and they went down a Manhole cover outside at the South East end of the building to some of the original pillars of the crypt, where bookbinders stashed their books and papers in the hope that they would be safe. Sadly they were burnt along with everything else.

Before the Great Fire, Wren had been appointed to oversee the restoration of the then 500 year old medieval building, when disaster struck just 5 years later, he designed this new building.

Sir Christopher Wren wasn’t a fan of stained glass and the reason is self evident. The light that streams into his magnificent buildings, showing off the wonderful architecture, there wouldn’t have been all the sculptures in there as there are now.

The gold and coloured mosaics were added at a later date.

When Wren had marked out the dome on the ground, he called for a labourer to bring him a piece of stone from out of the rubble to mark the centre.

When he turned it over, it had inscribed in it “Resurgam” Latin for I will rise again. In the pediment above the portico on the South side is a relief carving of a Phoenix rising from the flames, below it is carved Resurgam.

(As an aside, William Ramsay who was the stonemason to the king, Edward III in 1332, he designed the cloisters and the crypt of the medieval church. Ramsay was killed by the first plague and his daughter Agnes Ramsay took on the role of Royal stonemason , and supposedly carved the Kings tomb, when Edward died in 1377, but as a woman this was attributed to her brother. When I take part in medieval events, I like to think of her as my inspiration.)

As I left London, the skyline is still dominated by this magnificent building, a testament to the wonderful vision of Sir Christopher Wren and his everlasting memorial.

In my next post I will look at some of the sculptures in the Cathedral from a stonemason’s perspective.

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Wren’s Churches

20 February, 2025 – 9:00 am

I had the privilege of a tour around some of Sir Christopher Wren’s Churches in May 2024.

Back in 2015, I was made a Yeoman mason of the Worshipful Company of Masons . After my post detailing my work at at the Founder’s hall, I had commented that I would love to visit St Paul’s Cathedral. You can imagine how thrilled I was when the past master who had nominated me, offered to take me on a tour to look at the magnificent and iconic architecture in the City of London.

We started at Monument, erected to commemorate the Great Fire of London, exquisite carving depicting the events. Click the link which takes you to the website detailing the history behind this wonderful carving.

In short the frieze is a description in stone, Lady London in the bottom left hand corner is slumped on the crumbling London with the Dragon, the right side depicts the rebuilding of London with Charles II in the centre of the group.

There are three panels around the base of the column. My curious mind noticed that there had been something else carved at the bottom and had been altered; ” but Popish frenzy, which wrought such horrors, is not yet quenched” It was added in 1681, and later removed in 1830.

From here we moved onto a church, tucked away behind Cannon Street. St Mary Abchurch had a beautifully carved Marble font. The Alter Screen was carved by Grinling Gibbons and was completed in 1686.

St Mary Aldermary has the most incredible plaster vaulted ceiling.

St Mary Le bow is the home of London’s Bow bells, but what caught my eye was the Norwegian memorial, for those in the resistance against the Nazis, unfortunately I couldn’t get any closer.

After the Great fire, some churches were amalgamated, The Church of St Vedast-Alias-Foster has a wonderful courtyard garden, there was a service in the Church, so we took a few moments to appreciate the treasures that had been unearthed as they rebuilt London.

The Roman Mosaic wasn’t an unexpected find given the history of this area, but a cuniform tablet was an oddity. I particularly like the Jacob Epstein sculpture, obviously a much later addition to the courtyard.

Bill showed me a modern addition to the streets of London, sponsored by the Mason’s Livery company. An interesting stone bench, made of Roach Bed limestone from Portland. The holes are where sea creatures were when the sediment was collecting, but as they decayed they didn’t fossilise and left voids.

As we moved through London, we are now by St Paul’s Cathedral, but we stop to marvel at the wonderful Temple Bar. There used to be 8 bars guarding the entrance to the city of London, and they would have been just posts with bars across them, in Medieval times they would have been more substantial. The original Temple Bar stood at the junction of Fleet street and the Strand, near where the Lawyers had their offices.

Obviously over time, they would have fallen into disrepair and the Great fire of London destroyed them.

In the 17thC Charles II allegedly commissioned Sir Christopher Wren to design this gate, there is no hard proof, but his son had the original drawings.

It has been moved several times, and was put in this location in the early 2000’s, it was unveiled in November 2004.

If you would like to read a more in depth history, please visit this History of Temple Bar | Temple Bar Gateway