Paintings

05.26.2011

Abstract

Abstract Stone Sculpture

Well here is my second attempt at direct stone carving. No power tools used. I felt it was much more enjoyable this time around not focusing on anything too specific and just using the natural shapes I saw in the stone. I still see a lot of things I would have liked to change or do differently, but I am really happy the way it turned out. I was also really surprised how smooth the stone turned out! The stone is Leuders buff limestone.


I really had no idea what I was going to do with this big ol' heavy block. I never weighed it, but I'm guessing its around 75 lbs.


So I just started carving away. I noticed a natural notch that was in the stone so I decided to emphasize that and just see where it took me.


Then I could really start to see where the sculpture was going.





I knew I wanted to take out a lot of the middle section and make a sort of concave shape. I felt it would be better to do that toward the final steps for fear of breaking anything else I had worked on earlier.


Then it was just a matter of removing all of the chisel marks.


And then refining and filing and working out any irregularities.
Almost finished. Sanding it down at this point and removing any little notches and little stubborn chisel marks.


And here it is finished. You really have to feel it! I can't wait to get started on the next one.

05.06.2011

A challenger appears. . .

. . . S T O N E . . .

This is my first attempt at a stone sculpture. It's something that I've wanted to try for a long time and it was really challenging. It took me quite a long time and I made plenty of mistakes, but this one was all about learning the process. It didn't really turn out the way I wanted it to, but I'm pretty happy with it. It's made from Texas limestone which is a very soft stone. It could be very crumbly and chalky at times. Here's how it started off:


Pretty much just a cut piece of limestone. Very grey on the outside and also very chalky.


Starting to rough out the general shape



I really wanted to get rid of the blocky shape. I feel I didn't do this enough at the beginning and it kind of hurt me towards the end.





Starting to define the chin some more. I think this really starts to make it pop.


Kinda looks like Sloth.


Happy with the cheek area, I started to use the flat chisel to get rid of all the cuts.



Pretty much done using the point chisel. Now its all about getting it refined enough to start sanding.




Almost finished with the sanding process. You can really start to see the layers of the limestone.


Rinsing it off with water.



Not too bad for the first time.


The finished product. In retrospect, I think I was a little ambitious trying to make a human head. I also didn't have a clear enough vision of what I really wanted in the end. I started out wanting to make a more simplistic, stylized human face. . .but got it too close to being proportional. I think that makes the flaws stick out a lot more, but I learned a tremendous amount from doing it.