Sculpture
Guiding lines to help me on my way
In the workshop today – I’m beginning an owl sculpture. Before I start carving into the block of stone I quickly sketch an outline of my idea – the drawn lines act as a guide so I don’t take off stone where I shouldn’t! I’ll keep you updated as I go along.
Recumbent Rabbit
There are four favoured digging spots for the rabbits at my workshop, each showing regular fresh excavation and soil scattering. One is behind the greenhouse and leads under the hedgerow, another (shallow) is at my bonfire site, a third at the corner of, and into, my stone store shed, and the last out in […]
Ground Bird
I’ve been watching ground feeding birds, it astonishes me how acute their vision is and how quickly they peck up tasty morsels. There have been lots of blackbirds feeding in wet ground nearby, pulling worms – they sort of bird prance about, looking with focused intent, then dart forward head down, wings hunched, tugging […]
Tranquility Garden update
A little while ago I promised to share images of the Swan sculpture and Birdbath once they had been installed at the Tranquility Garden, Evesham Road Cemetary, Stratford upon Avon – so here they are. Yesterday I spent carving the feather motif on the plinths to complete the work for Hilary and her team […]
As light as a feather
Sometimes when I’m unsure about how a carving will look, or indeed whether I can achieve the result I would like, I have little practice runs. In this case I’ve had a trial run carving a feather – I wanted it to look light, and floating – not a quill sort of feather, but […]
Red Bird
These little treasures of red pebbles and my other thoughts on red stone recently, have inspired me to carve a piece of red sandstone that I had in the workshop. It was a slim slither of quite course grained stone, with areas of differing textures and it somehow became a bird – Red Bird. […]
Crow Country
Most days they are my background sound, and sometimes I stop, sit, and take time to watch their flapping rise, fall and curving in the sky above the line of trees which form the view from my workshop. Occasionally lone birds will caw and rattle at me from their perch at the top […]
Honing and Kibbling
Once I’ve carved my sculpture the surface can be ‘dressed’ to give textures and finishes, and there are many different surfaces I can create. Any finish given will alter the percieved colour of a stone, so I think about this when deciding. You can see the difference in the little samples above, they’re both […]
City Dog
I’ve just come across these pictures of my dog sculpture and they reminded me of when I carved the Pug. Some little while ago I was approached by Elegant Clutter to help with of one of their design projects. The client had requested a carved stone dog and liked one of my dog carvings […]
Swan Sculpture
Yesterday I delivered my swan sculpture to Stratford-upon-Avon, along with two large stone plinths, one for the swan, and another for a bowl-shaped birdbath which is also for the garden. They are for a newly built Tranquility Garden, designed by Spartacus Landscape Gardens for Stratford Town Council. I feel so proud of my sculpture […]