Getting ready for the Newbridge Arts Trail

Its still a couple of months till the Newbridge Arts Trail in Bath rolls round again but the time always flies. This year I am hoping to be more prepared, but this cold snap of weather is making me reluctant to venture out to my studio, so I thought I would update my blog.

Cast reproduction of the original stone carving

These are the pieces I have ready so far, which include some new ones and a couple of favourites from previous years. I am also hoping to have a few larger bespoke one-off pieces for sale.

Relief carving in Caen stone of serene lady

Relief carving of bird in flight

The two carvings side by side

Cast above carving below

Cast reproduction of carving of bird

Trial and error has taught me to try to make small pieces and if I make something I really like I have started to make small batches of limited edition reproductions that I will have on sale at the Arts trail.
All these are also for sale on  my website here

Palm tree relief carved in Caen stone

www.thestonegardener.co.uk

This is the picture of the completed stone carving of the palm tree relief in-situ in Portugal. The design process for this piece took almost as long as the carving itself. The client said palm tree, I thought, Beach! No, she was near a lake, oh and there were terrapins, and egrets and moorhens and kingfishers and dragonflies. I was worried that carving a palm tree in relief would be an impossible task, but I love a challenge and I think it turned out alright in the end.

First panel in progress

First carved panel with Egret and terrapin

The first panel took two week and I though uh oh this is going to take a lot longer than I thought, but I did speed up, not much but a little. The most difficult thing was getting everything to line up and near the end I took the entire background back on each stone, but it had to be right.

Small palm tree carving with water plants

The second panel was harder. It had to meet up with the carving of three neighboring panels which hadn't been carved yet so I had to leave so much of it un-worked until those were in progress.

I really enjoyed carving this cheeky shy moorhen

The beginnings of the kingfisher panel

Everything starting to come together

Blending stones, more below

An the finished piece which took over my postage stamp garden for quite a while

Frozen Salmon

STILL working on my huge salmon, though it is very, very close to being finished. It is singularly the longest project I have ever undertaken and it has been hard to keep motivated. I spent all of December and January and most of February working on it to get it to the stage it is now, with the help of my still life model below...

Below are lots of pics of the almost complete salmon. Its not very pgotogenic for some reason compared to the article in real life, which is why there are so many pictures. And its for sale if anyone is interested!!

 

Nearly there!

Below is a headstone I carved when I had had enough of the salmon

Busy year 2013

It been a long time since i updated my blog as I have been so busy this year. Things are slowing down, which is sort of good as it is just getting colder, and for all those people that work outside lets hope its not as harsh and lengthy a winter as last year! I have done lots of house restoration work this year. The most extreme transformation is this house in Easton, Bristol, which is possibly the worst I have seen still standing!
Before..

 And after

 

I also attended the Bristol festival of stone as an exhibitor, carving a very big salmon. I carved a prototype to see if it would work before attempting the larger sculpture out of a block of Portland.

Bath stone mini fish..

The larger fish is still a work in progress, which I am hoping to complete over the winter as the work is tailing off, hopefully next to a heat source of some sort. This is my most recent picture of it.

And below the still, *sigh* unfinished fish in progress stop motion film, this film is about 3 weeks worth of work.

I have just complete two carvings in Italian Slate for the two lodges of the R.A.O.B. which, for anyone that doesn't know is short for the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes (link to Wiki for the curious). And for the really curious there is a view of the Grand Lodge of England, brilliantly ostentatious fire place in a picture of the interior, and their website is here, lots of guys in regalia.

The first carving was for the Queen of the West Lodge, and is fairly straight forward in a geometric way, with an intertwining of the initials.

 

ignore the orange, I was zesting some Portuguese tarts

Slate is very tough and tends to laminate if not treated with care and there were a few hairy moments getting in all the tight spaces, but it polishes up really well and is a lovely material and great for fine details. A coating of linseed oil makes the finish.

The second plaque was for the Prior Park Lodge who wanted something more elaborate, and also something less strict in structure. The picture below shows the project in various stages, which is a representation of a buffalo. I was limited to only 10mm of stone, and spent a week playing with plasticine, (invented in Bathhampton) before reaching anything that vaguely looked acceptable. I quite like it but I think the Buffs may think it lacks fierceness, the jury is still out on this one.

 

Had a great day last Friday in a carve off competition with two french sculptors, with plenty of music, and cider. The sun came out and the rain mostly stayed away. It was a pre-launch for a huge event next summer - Festival of stone Bristol 2013 which will involve 50 or more sculptors.

The venue was Spike Island, Bristol. Both teams started with a piece of stone 400 x400 x 600 kindly supplied by Phidias Neo-classical Ltd.

I had the privilege of being partnered with Ben Dearnely (above) who produced the carving of the Mark Foster torso now sited in Southgate, Bath.

We shared the block of stone and Ben carved the man, myself the woman, on the theme of  'Amour'.

Time was limited, we had only six hours, and sketched out our design on the way over from Bath, so all in all it was a success.

 Congrats to both teams, many thanks to all the people who gave up their time to make the day a success and for providing some lovely food, and oodles of beer and cider. And thanks to the accordion player who kept us going!