Cat's Eye Carving

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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The Cherub Sculpture VI

This post goes into the measuring process in more detail, focusing on the arms of both of the Cherubs.

As you can see I marked on the template the distance in from the edge of the stone (picture 3), I drew a line which I transferred onto the stone by using 2 rulers (picture 4), and more than one pair of hands!

I cut this area off and masoned the stone off completely square to the arm. I was then able to mark the heights of the measurements, in pictures 6 and 7 I have moved around the arm in order get a better understanding of the forms, I have started to cut under the arm to reveal the body of the Cherub.

As you can see the measuring is becoming more refined and I am getting closer to the finish!

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The Cherub Sculpture V

The next stage was to turn the maquette around so I could start taking some measurements off the wings and the back of the heads.

In order to do this, I made a template of what I had drawn on my bench and placed the plaster model of the Cherubs on this. I could continue marking lines on the template paper for guidelines.

i needed to find the point where the wings met in the middle, and how high this point was. I had left some extra stone on the back of the heads in order to give me enough stone to carve curls into the hair.

By using the models of the Cherubs, I was able to determine how far in I needed to come, to get the edge of the body, I couldn’t just saw down as this would take off the wing, so I sawed in horizontally to a point where I knew the edge of the body was.

I was able to put identify more measurements on the wings and this enabled me to start forming the shape. Obviously I can’t take too much stone away from under the wings-yet. This is because while I am still wielding heavy mallets and chisels, there is a danger of knocking the wrong bit off. When I start to spend more time on the hair, I will start to develop the wings more.

I am really pleased with the progress of this commission. The Tetbury limestone that I am using has a lovely golden hue and it is very dense so I will be able to carve some fine details.

Until next time…

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