Starting a New Sculpture Using Feathers and Wedges to Size the Block

So what do you do when you have a 12" thick block and need about 6"? Simple, use feathers and wedges to cleanly split the block and get it down to a reasonable size. In the video below, I show an easy way to very quickly split a block by drilling a few holes and then letting pressure do its work.

When I first started carving, If I needed to get rid of a lot of stone, I would get my point out and start chipping away. It would take me a great deal of time and I would waste a bunch of stone. Now, I break out a hammer drill and some feathers and wedges and I am able to cut the block in half and I have two useable pieces. 

Carving an Indiana Limestone Fountain - Day 1

I started a new commission a few weeks ago. However, the first 3 weeks have Baan digging the stone out from under a bunch of other stone, then flattening the bottom so I could stand it up. Last night, I finally got the piece stood up and started carving.

The block started out around 3000 pounds. I took a little off of it to get the bottom flat. Now I will be removing a bunch of weight. To start I used feathers and wedges to split the corners off the top to begin shaping the roundness of the head. I left a lot more than a typical head as this piece will have foliage rather than hair. It is going to compliment a piece that I did several years ago for the same folks. 

After I got the corners knocked off, I used a diamond saw to remove basic material. I cut kerfs in the stone then use a hammer drill to quickly remove the pieces to the score line, I used to just start carving with my air hammer. If I were to still work that way, this project would take aver a year to complete. Hy hope is that this will be completed by the end of the year.

Once I remove a lot of the basic material, I alternate between the air hammer and the diamond blade to rough in the shapes. The air hammer allows me to start creating the forms and then I can come back with the saw to remove any waste. In the video below, you will see the progress I made in just a few hours.

More Progress on the Untitled Indiana Limestone Piece I am Carving

I have made a lot of great progress on the Indiana Limestone piece I am currently working on. It is a pretty complicated piece to carve because of the turns and twists going on throughout the piece. Until it gets narrowed down in some areas, I have to put a lot of pressure on the stone where the gaps are tight. If I try to go too fast in narrowing to lessen the pressure, I can get rid of stone that I might need later on. 

Much of this guess work could be eliminated if I did a moquette first. However, I am not a fan of doing that for these free form pieces. I think the fun in creating this type of sculpture is to just start drilling, carving and grinding until you think you are finished. Now, at times that leads to pieces that get stuck and don't want to cooperate. You get going and realize that area that you just spent a ton of time on looks terrible. I have several pieces that are sitting on the side of the studio that are in that state. I will look at them every once in a while to see if I can figure something out to make them better. Sometimes, you have to get rid of a section before it ever gets where you want it.

With this piece, I thought I might have that problem with the lower section. Fortunately, it is moving in the right direction. I still have a little left to figure out at the bottom of the piece. Specifically, I have to figure out how it will tie into the bottom inch of the piece that I plan to leave a a mounting section. But, it is definitely moving along well and I think I have a pretty good plan. Ultimately, this piece will sit on top of another piece of Limestone that is 18" x 18" x 36". This will give the piece the height I want to get the lower section more viewable.

Starting A New Commission

I recently finished my largest commission and have been working on doing some non-commissioned pieces. That is very freeing, but it is also very fun and amazing that someone is interested enough in my work that they would be willing to trust me to create a piece for them without seeing it completed. So today I started in on a new commission. 

My new piece will be a fountain that will match a bench that the owners purchased from me a few years ago. I have never done a fountain before so this will be a cool experience. I will be carving this piece out of Indiana Limestone, the same stone as the bench they already have.

Starting on a new piece is fun, but there is a bit of not so fun part to it. One of the pieces I want to use is buried under a ton (probably literally) of other stone. So the not so fun parts of this commission will be to dig out this piece of stone! 

New Sculpture in the Works

​From June of 2017 to April of 2018, I really only worked on my largest commission, “Cor Liberum”, a sculptural experience for Norton Hospital, Audubon campus. While I enjoyed working on that piece, because of the scale and timeframe, I did not work on anything else. I have so many ideas in my head that need to get out. This is the only time I wish I were a painter. They can move a lot faster. 

​So, once I finished the Norton piece, I have been scatter brained. I started carving so many pieces I can’t keep them strait. Slowly I am narrowing down the work. I finished two pieces which helped. I have set two others aside. I work on one just on the weekends and the final one, the largest of them, is also closing in on being done. This is good as I have two new commissions to get started on.  

Bordiglio Marble is a Beautiful Stone, But Difficult to Carve

I started carving a nude in Bordiglio marble, an Italian marble, the first time I have carved this stone. I don't know if it is all of the Bordiglio, but at least this particular piece has such strong bedding planes, that the stone is actually fragile. With this work that I am carving on now, the goal is to get it very thin and delicate. I have lost one piece of it already and have a section that feels a little iffy. So, the stone typically tells you which way it wants to go, this one maybe dictate a little stronger than most. Even with that challenge, the stone is so pretty, that it is well worth the struggle.

A Change in Direction Continued

in. Recent post, I talked about how sometimes you think you know where you are goi with a piece and then the stone says “nope”. Then there are times when, after you and the stone have agreed on a direction, friends give you ideas to consider for a different direction. On this piece, both occurred. 

This piece started its life as a part of the leg of my Norton commissions large figure. When standing the figure up, it broke off. After I stopped crying and really took a look at this piece, I liked the shap of the piece. With a little refinement, I thought I had something, but the stone disagreed.

In the first photo, you can see the original idea starting to take shape  however, the stone just kept fighting me. As I worked around the stone, certain views worked, then others would work, but the stone wouldn’t cooperate to look right as a whole. So, I finally listened.

the second photo shows where i got to after listening to the stone. By freeing up part of the front, it started to feel right. I moved on and finished carving and sanding. I decided to stain it and was contemplating how to base it.

I posted the third photo on Facebook and got an interesting suggestion. One of my friends suggested hanging the piece rather than basing it. I haven’t totally decided, but am leaning towards that. 

Check back and see how it turns out.  

Using Wood Stain on Indiana Limestone

I have started experimenting with some of my limestone pieces. I have used wood stains to add a different feeling to the work. This is my second attempt. I don’t have a title for this one yet, and it is still in progress. I have to figure out how to base it. I have had many suggestions to hang it. But, that is beside the point. As you can see, this piece is not the standard color of Indiana limestone. I used a blue universal wood dye to add color. I think it is pretty cool. What I don’t know is how it will hold the color if it becomes an outdoor sculpture. That is one of the fun parts of being an artist is that you get to experiment to see what happens.