The port view perplexed me during the previous carving session. Fortunately some research and time to digest the information settled the vision in my mind allowing this carving session to proceed with confidence. Surfaces and lines called out to me for major and minor adjustments. Rough shape the hull then cut the contours into the sails. All flowed wonderfully until fatigue brought my hands to a stop. The sculpture still calls me for continuation but I need to rest and recover before proceeding. It deserves my best. Front view. This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.
0 Comments
Donna mentioned a new "doodle" art called Zentangle at a recent family event and recommended that I give it a try. Here are a few creations. Although I enjoy creating them, they require such focus on hand eye coordination that they're far from relaxing... but well worth doing. I have learned that patterns work better when they're not random and that I need to practice drawing weaves. This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.
Being careful not to slip down a path of problems, I goggled sailboats to see how they looked structurally and how the wind shaped their sails. The sculpture's mast was too far forward so I shaved off the bump and formed a smooth peak further back. By gently swaying the grinder up and down the jib, the rough spots gradually disappeared revealing a jib full of wind. Then the back of the jib was cut in showing where it ties off one corner at the top and one corner at the side of the sailboat. I ground the main sail into a smooth curve then flipped the sculpture over and started working on the other side. There are two straight lines on a sailboat, the vertical mast and the horizontal support under the main sail (I forget what it's called but I know it's there.) These should be visible on the other side of the sails but my head was having trouble seeing where they fit in the stone. My hand used the grinder to cut in gently lines where I think they should be. Where I THOUGHT they should be. Were they right? Not sure. Stop! The artistic edge of my brain was fatigued and unable to set direction. It had been an hour since I started carving and although my hands were capable of more, my head was not. Past experience has taught me that continuing to carve in such a state is pure folly with disastrous errors about to occur. Time to stop, wait and let the sculpture ferment in my head until the direction is known with confidence. That's the beauty of "working" at my own pace. In the old days of working eight hour days for a paycheque the company insisted on working to a buzzer, start at the buzzer, stop for break at the buzzer, buzz to restart, buzz for lunch stop, buzz for restart, buzz to go home. It was all so structured, all so counter to personal needs and efficiencies. I'm glad to be retired, to be free to do what I do best when I do it best. This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.
Corners removed, rough surfaces smoothed, wind filled sails form perfect curves with no deviations allowed. The mast top point is evident with the jib to the left and the main sail to the right. While grinding in the midst of a cloud of dust that swirled around me then trailed off with the winds a song from my distant past stepped to the front of my mind, Sailing by Chris Croft. The lyrics, "Sailing, takes me away from..." reminded me of carving. The process of sculpting consumes my attention and takes me away from whatever is going on in the world. My world reduces to the moment with just me, my tools and the sculpture... so simple, so complete. Browsing through the table covered with stones, occasionally picking one up and setting it down in a different orientation, identifying the possible shapes within, melding the stones and ideas in my mind to see if they fit. After a few visits I selected this for my next sculpture. It's a flat stone with a long flat base that contains a sailboat within. The mast extends up to the small bump at the top as the boat sails to the left in this photo with the sails billowing toward me. The photo below shows where the sails will be hollowed, capturing winds. The bottom photo shows the end view of the boat coming toward me. Knowing that I could accidentally loose the rock's orientation during the many flips and turns as I rough shape it with an angle grinder, I took a pencil and drew a circle around the tip of the mast. Any time during the dust filled grinding, when the world is covered with fine white powder, I can blow on the rock's points to find the mast and be sure of where I am. If only life were so easy, that any time I was lost I could simply blow and instantly know where I was. This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.
The spot wouldn't come out so it stays (as an offset navel I suppose). I filed and resanded the belly but to no avail, Sometimes rocks insist on a feature that the sculptor cannot alter. Becoming obsessed with its removal could result in a disastrous shape so like so many things in life, the optimal choice is to accept the reality and move on. Its an interesting coincidence that this sculpture is the first that I created since retiring. My life is in transition, not sure where to focus my time when this sculpture emerges from within a rock, showing the way for me to go. I wish I knew where he was pointing. On day 5 I removed more stone from under the arm and sanded the whole piece with medium grit sandpaper in water. This is an intriguing discovery phase revealing details of the stone's character. A beautiful green vein appeared up the back of the sculpture (great news) but the white blotch on the man's belly persisted. I find the belly blotch distracting and intend to resand the area with rough paper to remove a skin of stone from the entire belly and hopefully decrease the blotch's intensity. Out damn spot. like Lady MacBeth, my scrubbing intensifies. This is a current work in process, carved from a piece of soapstone about 12" high that my father and brother found in BC. I had the stone for years, looking at it, trying to determine which side was up and what sculpture hid within. The shape was a leaning rectangle with a point on on corner and the point drove me crazy... like a gigantic nose. Then one day when I was looking at the block the true shape appeared. The point on the corner wasn't a nose, it was an arm extending to the side. Inside the stone was a man pointing "Go that way". The next day I hauled out my angle grinder and rough shaped the piece while removing defects in the stone. Day 2 was spent filing details and smoothing out the curves then I set the sculpture on our kitchen counter for reflection. I asked Pam what she saw and was suprised to hear that she saw a large bird head over an egg. On Day 3 I reshaped the top of the piece and rough sanded it. When Pam saw it on the counter she said it looked like a man pointing. Success for concept but the pointing arm didn't look right to me so Day 4 involved removing stone from under the arm and improving the aesthetics of some curves. A few days later when Sondra, Justin, Shirley and Jack were over to visit I asked what they saw. Person pointing, little man pointing, fat man pointing and a bat. Say what??? A bat??? Hmmm. OK, I see it. The stone under the pointing arm is a wing. Tomorrow's task is to remove more stone from under the arm while being careful not to remove so much that it becomes too thin to look balanced with the rest of the fat man's form. It's fun watching the sculpture emerge. |
Ben McCarlThousands of potential sculptures lie within each and every uncut stone. Sometimes the destiny is obvious when I see a stone and sometimes releasing the sculpture within is a long journey following countless hints and inspirations. Archives
September 2013
Categories |