Before I got to enthusiastic about removing wood, I made a 3D model in Plasticine of both figures. My thoughts are that a Plasticine model should only be sufficient to solve the problem to hand. If another problem occurs then the model can be worked on again until the that problem is solved. There is no point producing a beautiful model that no one is going to see especially if it does not solve problems.
The next stage is to transfer the measurements to the wood and start carving. There is a problem of ' as soon as you carve, you have cut away the lines you are working to'. I carved in some base lines from which all others can be measured in the waste wood under the figures so that they will not effect the finished work.
Below is the male figure roughed out. The shape is there and everything is i the right place but over sized.
I switched back to the female figure and have now got it to a ' just before carving the clothing' stage. I hope that you can see that the figure is almost down to size and the wood for the rucksack has been defined. I will get the male to the same stage before I go any further with the female. This follows a good artist practice of keeping all the work to the same point in it's development. Most painters do not start in one corner and finish that before they do anything to the rest of the painting.
Wish I knew why, when I take two photographs with all the settings and circumstances the same including the same artificial light, the background colour is different. The green is nearer the correct colour.
This is the male figure and it's getting nearer to completion. I am starting to define the clothing, and have put a bit of movement into the feet as if he was swinging his feet whilst sitting on something where they did not reach the ground
I have carved the grooms rucksack which is so different from mine that I have had to seek advice from a local outdoors shop Mountain Wild in Hebden Bridge www.mountain-wild.com/ . They have kindly explained the differences in construction and let me take photos and even compare a plasticine model of the side pocket with an actual. Sculptors have to get used to asking the strangest of questions
Got the male figure free from all the carving block. Not quite finished yet as there were some parts I could not get to until it was free. Needs some cleaning up and fine finishing, but this is a major step forward. I do not use glass paper as there would be place that it's impossible to get to. so it will be a tooled finish
Back to the female figure last seen as
You will see that I have been doing quite a lot with the feet, legs and body. Getting round to the rucksack and will hopefully have the carving off the block soon. has to be soon as the wedding is in early June
