Cat's Eye Carving

The Gloucester Stone Carving festival

11 March, 2013 – 11:53 am

Well things are moving along very well.

Dates are The 25th, 26th and 27th May this year running alongside the Tall Ships festival it will be at The Llanthony Secunda Priory in Gloucester.

The prizes for the best carvings have been donated by Gibson tools, and the stone has been donated by Veizeys Quarry in Tetbury

There are a few side stalls The Gloucester geology Trust will be running activities, there will be someone from the Newport Ship Friends doing coin stamping, and The Greenman and The gatekeeper will have a stall.

I will be designing a carving based around a figurehead that will be in a raffle and as soon as I have drawn the design I will post images and the raffle tickets will go on sale.

The bulk of the profits will go to our chosen charities The Llanthony Secunda Priory Trust and the Gloucester Geology trust, and some will be kept back to start preparing for the next event.

More information can be found on the official website www.stonecarvingfestival.co.uk

If you would like any information please get in touch via my contact page

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Sampson, a portrait of a Harris Hawk

7 March, 2013 – 8:02 am

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.

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The Ice Age Sculpture exhibition

26 February, 2013 – 8:30 am

My partner took me to The British Museum on Monday the 18th to see the Exhibition of Ice Age sculpture from 40-27,000 years ago.
What an inspiration, the detail in the carving using just primitive tools, chronicling their lives. The most important thing to them was women-they brought new life into their unsure world. They carved using flints and rocks out of Mammoth tusks and bones. The women were carved before, during and after pregnancy. They carved the animals that sustained them, decorated the weapons that they used for hunting. This was their life, staying alive, they had no books, no t.v. Their food wasn’t ready butchered and they had no other tools than the flint and bone. I can imagine them sitting around their fire, carving what they saw that day, the miracle of new life. I don’t believe that there are any hidden meanings. They carved life.
I have always loved carving the human figure and often the female form whether just the face or the whole body, clothed or naked but I became stuck, unsure where to go next. I used to visit the British Museum alot, it played a big role in my A-level sculpture project, Egyptian Cats. Where my stonemasons mark came from, also during my degree.
I always planned to spend more time drawing and although I do there was always the business of running a business. Being away from that surrounded by beautiful historic figures, sculptures items from the natural world has re-invigorated me, I feel as though I can re-focus and get stuck in.
I have alot of drawings from throughout my adult life of things that interest me and now I understand how to portray them. I have some new designs and I am working on some new sculptures, once I have completed my first one I will publish a new post with the drawings and images.

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Flute, a portrait of an Owl

17 February, 2013 – 1:11 pm

I was asked to carve an Owl, a White Faced Owl from the Congo, Flute looks very cute but in fact he is a rat hunter.

I have put the photo and the finished carving together so you can see the 2 next to each other!

As you can see I made a drawing from the photograph.

The tricky bit was to carve his rather fluffy moustache-especially in relief! I could have carved it in a very shallow relief as I did with the horse portrait but this required slightly less fragile stone such as the beautiful Forest red.

The next stage was to carve all around the outline to give myself a platform to carve into.

As I cut further into the stone it becomes clear that I have to cut down further in order to create the features. I cut all around the base of the island of stone in order to cut the depth back. All the while drawing on the stone and referring to all the photos that I was working from.