Wedding Present

I got this job to make a rather different wedding present.     The young couple looked round what I rather laughingly call a gallery; my basement with 40 years of carvings on display along with some normal DIY junk.   They chose a to have two seated 'portraits' of themselves.     Portraits in that the body shapes will be theirs but not with faces.   At the scale I am carving the head is about 3 cm high whereas the real head is about 21cm, so a 1 to 7 ratio.    1 mm off say the nose on the carving would be the equivalent of 7 off an actual nose which would be very noticeable.

The wood is holly and is from  log I have had drying for some time.   It has been cut so that I can get both carving out of one log

 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

Lever Trust Prize

I got a commission to produce the 2011 prize for the Lever Trust.   Previously they had had them made in metal and glass see on left.
Not my normal thing but I am getting to an age when the attraction of climbing up a pile of pallets in the middle of a park waiving a chainsaw at a tree stump, may be declining.    I am looking to break into the corporate market and this is my first opportunity. 





Cutting the outside shape was easy.    But the inside has had me worried for some months.   I got a Draper fretsaw for £5 from Ebay, and experimented with it.     Got some glass paper files for cleaning up the inside of the cut out bits.     Had been able to hide behind the lack of knowing who was the winner, until  I had run out of excuses.

 




Finally I did it!!!!    Only took a day when I got down to it.     All that planning, tool gathering, and practising paid off.       Now I have to produce the base and carve the name of the winner on it.    I suppose I will have to keep that secret.        

Glad to join the BLOG community

Hi Everyone




This is my first attempt at a blog and I am not sure what to write.t some inspiration


I am a carver so I am going to talk about what I am doing.      Last Christmas I found a lump of Olive wood by the side of a path near Soller, Majorca, and slipped it into my rucksack.   It has been knocking around the floor of my workshop ever since, waiting while I got some inspiration.       It is now becoming a rather well padded female figure, carrying some bags over one shoulder and lifting up the hem of her long skirt with the other hand.    I am enjoying it and find olive a pleasant wood to work.

Wow this system is clever.   I found out how to add images easily without looking at the help, always the last place I look.     BUT I have not found how to put up two images side by side, so here is the back view.