Cat's Eye Carving

Cherub Commission. X

Well here they are, I still have to carve the inscription and shape the stone blocks.

The inscription will be carved on a sunken panel. You will notice a hole under the hands at the front, this is to drain off the water that would otherwise pool.
I may put a lead spout so that the water is thrown away from the front of the stone. That’s it so far, there is probably another 2 weeks work I will put a post up when the whole thing is completed.

Thank-you very much for reading.

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Cherubs IX

Well here are the latest photos, as you can see I have started to carve more detail and there is a hand!

I decided to carve feathers between the wing and the shoulder in order to give strength but hopefully make it look delicate.

From mittens to fingers, I always shape the hands as mittens first so that I can get an idea of the shape without committing myself too early.

I hope that the way I have carved the hand on the face makes it appear that the fingers are pressing into the cheek.

I am coming scarily close to finishing these cherubs and the next stage is to put them on top of the other 2 blocks of stone and then to carve the stone into a more natural shape and finally the inscription.

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The next project.

I will be putting the cherub commission on hold for a few weeks while I get on with some other commissions. However as my website is about 2wks behind the cherubs, there are still 2 more posts to go up!
The next commission is a carving of a Green man with rams horns and ivy leaves, lots of daisy flowers and big petals. I have a lovely big piece of Tetbury limestone from my favourite quarry, Veizeys. I will be putting up a post as I go, but I anticipate that it will take me about 10 days.
There are 2 more Freeminer plaques to carve in Welsh slate-the slate is from The Horseshoe pass.
I have just completed a house name in the red forest sandstone, then there are a few more letter cutting jobs to complete.

I will be having a 3wk break from commissions at the beginning of June in order to carve some more pieces for my shop, also to have some time to get on with my slate carvings.

The next few months are looking very exciting and I hope you are enjoying reading about what I do.

Please feel free to write a comment at the bottom of any post that peaks your interest-I will reply. 🙂

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Cherubs VIII

Well as you can see the beautiful weather is ideal for working outside, this light is perfect for seeing detail and obviously once I have washed the dust off, I can see what needs to be worked on next!

Having put the first shapes over the hair I can start to work on the wings. I find it very important not to concentrate too long on any one feature as each area should relate to the next.

The wings need to be figured out, I have never seen a cherub so I used my imagination to decide how to carve the details. Obviously there is the primary wing but what happens then?! I consulted my extensive library of renaissance sculpture and carried on.

I carefully cut feather shapes to give myself a starting point-there is plenty of stone and so I could change the shapes as I saw fit until I was happy with what I saw.

I spent some more time on the hands and refining the shapes of the curly hair before giving the sculpture another rinse and then deciding on the next area to work on.

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The Cherub Sculpture VII

Before I continued with the carving, I drilled the holes in the bottom for the threaded stainless steel bar that would be securing the 3 stones together.
In order to make sure all the holes correspond I marked on the template where they would go,  you can see this in the first image.

I started to develop the eye shapes, but before I could go any further I decided to give the whole carving a good wash-this enables me to see the features without the layer of dust that comes with carving.
As you can see from the 3rd photo this washing off of the dust makes everything visible-including the imperfections. It is also an opportunity to see the carving in a natural light-which is always best and although I have daylight bulbs shining from different directions, I much prefer to work outside.

As you can see in the last four photos, I have started to develop the faces much more, creating the illusion of eyebrows without carving every hair, also developing the cheeks and lips.
Every stone has different properties and although this is a fine grained limestone it is not like marble and therefore it will only accept a certain level of detail.

I put a small nic where the nostrils could go but it is important not to actually carve them at this stage-in case I need to change the shape of the nose!

Be patient…

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