Animal carving II

​I’m continuing with the koala story this month.  They are taking quite a time and I’ve not moved on as far as I’d have liked to with them.  But quality over quantity every time!

Figure 1 shows an early stage of the cutting out with the trim blade.  Cut out in one plane, then cut at 90 degrees to the first and you'll not cut off too much, hopefully!

​As I grind down the blocks of stone the shapes of the koalas slowly emerge, which is a strange and wonderful experience.  It almost seems as if they are escaping from the confines of the stone!

Figure 2 shows what to my eyes already looks like a koala, with the legs  nearest to the camera.  Here I've already started to grind out the shape as I couldn't trust myself to not cut off too much stone with the trim blade.

Figure 3 shows a more advanced stage of grinding.  That's the head on top, with most of the stone left between the ears, a very prominent feature on koalas.  The head was still far too large here.

Points to guide you which come to mind are:

• keep your sessions short (around an hour at a time works for me) - only as long as I can maintain my concentration

Figure 4 shows areas to receive attention in the next round of grinding.  It also shows a small fracture plane in the rock which needed to be ground out.  This affected the size of the head, and therefore the size of the body.  The left foot needed to be made smaller but still had to support the carving in the "tree".

Figure 5 shows a more-or-less completed carving.  It's a model of a young animal, where the head is larger in relation to the body, and because it is going to be hunched up, the head becomes larger in relation to the length of body.  Yes, I'm working from photographs and can prove that!

• this reduces my chances of removing too much stone in any area, as I look with fresh eyes every time I re-set
• sometimes I make lots of progress and others not, but just keep going as the stone tells  me how fast I can work it!
• I remove the flat, slab edges as soon as I can – there are few flat faces in Nature and the carving looks better when they are gone
• I can’t reiterate it often enough – cutting and grinding the form from outside to inside avoids problems with proportions, so for the ears, for example, leave additional stone in place between them until the proportions and size of the rest of the animal are correct and then go back and expose them
• use black or white markers, depending on the darkness of the rock, to indicate where to remove more stone

Figure 6 shows another angle.  Yes, the carving is of a rather "full figured" animal, but artistic license is used here - the stomach and inside leg detail is going to be hidden by the tree it sits in, so added strength is given by leaving the stone in place.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Figure 7 shows the L foreleg and the back of the thigh muscle are too prominent.  They will be ground down next time.

• even after I think the piece is formed, it’s worth a cool-off for a couple of days and then have another look at it.  Does it look right?  If not, grind the offending parts one more time.  Seek perfection!

Figure 8 shows some  really dark Cowell where black marker just doesn't show up.  I  found a useful paint marker which dries pretty quickly and is  very useful, though floods occasionally as you  can see.

Figure 9 - who's a handsome fellow then?  now, how do I  finish the piece?  Polished?  Unpolished?  I'll finish the others in the batch and then decide ....

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• tools I used here, in order, were the large diamond saw blade, the trim blade, my coarsest flexible belt, the coarse 100 mm grinding wheel, then the 25 mm wheel.  As I progressed towards carving the detail I used smaller and smaller burrs

 
By the next blog I will have done a lot more work on them, including making a decision on whether to finish them polished, or not.  Happy carving!

Figure10 shows what I'm doing - the animal is sitting in the tree as all self-respecting koalas do.



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