Cat's Eye Carving

A New Greenman.

15 January, 2025 – 10:00 am

As you know I have alot of interesting carvings available to buy off the shelf, but I need to keep on top of my commissions.

I had started carving a new Greenman at one of my demonstration days for the Maison Dieu in Dover, but hadn’t got very far.

After my last commission, of the Viking, I was inspired to carve my Greenman as a Viking.

This is where I left him from the Summer, there was plenty of stone to change the design and his leaves could be converted to horns.

Here are the progress photos;

I love my new Greenman Viking, designed by me and hand carved out of Tetbury limestone.

This carving along with other more traditional Greenman carvings are available to buy from my shop.

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In my role as the Stonemason in Residence for The Maison Dieu, I am invited to run activities and demonstrations. At this years Heritage Open weekend, I was invited to demonstrate stone carving and give the general public the chance to try it for themselves.

The other heritage crafts that have been part of this re-awakening project were demonstrating their skills and giving the general public an opportunity to try their hand as well.

This company have been lovingly restoring the wall art in the Maison Dieu.

This is one of the many beautiful paintings that have been restored, this was being cleaned for people to watch.

Engaging the next generation of creative individuals is incredibly important.

I also took part in a wonderful day of stone carving activities in the Autumn half term, in the Biggin Hall with the Future Foundry, a recently arts council funded group, to help bring creative activities to the youth community in Dover.

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Viking commission.

26 December, 2024 – 11:45 am

I was asked to carve a replica of a small glass ornament that my customer owned.

I wanted to use my favourite Tetbury limestone, and thankfully I still have some in my store.

After I had rounded the stone, I started to mark where the details would be.

I left some stone on to create a moustache and asked my customer to come in and give me his input. He was happy with my progress, but wasn’t keen on the moustache. It’s better to do it this way, I can’t put the stone back.

It’s quite tricky interpreting from photographs, but he turned out really well and reminds me of Noggin the Nog and the Lewis chess set.

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Cleaning a door surround.

25 October, 2024 – 11:15 am

This lovely brick house is finished with stone door and window surrounds, unfortunately pollution has turned some areas black.

My customer asked if I could clean it off and make good the eroded stone.

The weather over the years has attacked the soft bed layers in the stone and left it pitted and worn, the fossils and calcite layers have created natural shelves for me to build my mortar repairs onto. I did have to chop some of the stone away to create seats to build the lime mortar onto.

Cement has been used in the past to try and re-construct the stone, unfortunately cement speeds up the erosion process by trapping the water in the already damaged stone.

The first thing was to do was to clean the stone with water and scrubbing brushes and then I applied a poultice to break the black stain down so that it was easier to wash away.

Once the cleaning was finished, I could get on with preparing the stone for the repairs.

The mortar needs to be built up gradually and kept damp to prevent it from shrinking and failing.

I have done all I can this season. After the last frosts next Spring, I can assess what needs to be done to complete the work. At this stage, I am happy with the repairs but it is important to assess after the Winter to ensure that the repairs have been successful

Lime needs to be worked with above 5 degrees otherwise any frosts will cause it to fail.

I look forward to completing this job next year and sharing the final photos with you.

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Letter cutting commissions.

8 September, 2024 – 9:32 am

This house sign is hand carved out of Portland limestone and is finished with 23 carat gold leaf.

Before I start carving I draw out the design on the surface of the stone and check with my customer that they are happy before any carving starts.

Florence Villas was a replacement for a very broken piece of Bath stone from over a 100 years ago. I used a coarse Lepine which has good weathering properties.

Senlac is hand carved out of a piece of seasoned Oak and I have finished this with black paint and yacht varnish. Young’s Cottage is hand carved Welsh slate and due to the nature of this material, it doesn’t need painting.

This memorial is hand carved out of Old Red sandstone from the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, the images are important to the family, I have finished this with enamel paint and gold leaf on the sun.

Cleaning memorials is very satisfying as it brings the carving back to fresh and like new. I have scrubbed these ones, sanded them and then re-painted the letters.