Cat's Eye Carving

Flute, a portrait of an Owl

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.

Once I had removed the excess stone I sanded the background surface to ensure there was a contrast between the stone and the carving.

Flute decided that it would be a good idea to perch on his carving!!

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Syreford limestone carving

Well I have finally finished my carving of a sleeping girl.

I hope you like her.

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The Snow is melting

Well I am back at work after not being able to get to my workshop, the snow is very pretty but a little inconvenient considering I live 25 miles away!

I have just started a new commission, it is a carving in relief of a beautiful white faced owl. The owners show birds of prey and look after these beautiful wild creatures.
They have chosen red Forest of Dean Sandstone which although is very hard to carve offers a unique colour and due to it’s close grain I will be able to get some good detail.

This is a photo of ‘Flute’ and my drawing on the stone before I made a start.

I have also made some progress on my latest slate carving of the spirals, I have managed to cut the whole design out and now I can concentrate on getting the depth needed to bring out the layered patterns.

You may have been following the posts before Christmas detailing the carving of the seated girl in Syreford limestone, I have been working hard on getting her finished here is a photo of her from last week there will be more photos coming I think I’ll make you wait until she is finished! I have named her Rachel.

Please feel free to post comments and ask questions!

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Snow!

I’m sorry but I will be closed until the roads become passable again.

Watch this space or visit my facebook page for updates.

Enjoy the weather!!

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Commissioned gifts

Here are some photos of carvings I was commissioned to do at the end of last year.

A gentleman got in touch and wanted me to carve a poem he had read out at his God-Daughters wedding, unfortunately it would have been a very large piece of slate and ultimately more than he had budgeted for so he chose a line from the poem and I carved this in a beautiful piece of welsh slate roof tile-this helped to keep the weight down as it is only approximately 1/4 inch thick.

As you can see I have used a slightly italicised style of lower case letters, no paint was needed as it was clearly legible. This commission cost £75.

This Green Man was commissioned as a Christmas present and will be built into a house that is being constructed very near to Loch Ness!!
I chose Portland limestone as it has very small close grained particles, it is hard and takes fine carving, it is also a good weathering stone.

It couldn’t be too big, not only for budget reasons but also because it was being taken on a plane! It is 5 inches square and 41/2 inches deep. The rule of thumb when building something into the wall is to have 4 inches behind the wall line.

Because it was being built into the wall I over-carved the detail in the leaf to help add shadow so that it would be visible from the ground, obviously I couldn’t carve too much into the stone as it was on a small scale and too much detail can often ruin a carving.
This commission cost £145

The final photos are of a birdbath that I was commissioned to do in November, my clients were on their way back to Wales and called in to Taurus Crafts for a break, they stumbled upon my workshop and explained what they wanted- a rough boulder hollowed out to create what would look like a natural rock pool on their newly constructed rockery. Well some of you may be familiar with my rockery birdbaths and so I suggested that they have a look at my website at some of the previous pieces.
It was great to get a phone call from them telling me that they would like to commission one, I had a few boulders in my stock and picked out one that I had been saving for just this type of carving. As you can see the rock has the beautiful grey and red layering which looks so beautiful when carved into particularly when it is wet.

Hollowing out this stone is particularly hard work so I employed my angle grinder, my woodpecker and finished off with my tungsten carbide tipped bull nose chisels. This commission cost £275.

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