Post #298551 by Tipua on Thu, Apr 12, 2007 12:11 AM

On 2007-04-11 21:27, Tamapoutini wrote:

A very good hint for all 'reductive' carvers Hula Cat! Back at 'jade-school' part of the curriculum was to produce drawings from several angles & clay 'marquettes'/models before attempting the final work in stone. It is extra work & the temptation to think 'she'll be right' and blaze into a carving is a strong one, but they really can be life-savers when tackling tricky 3-dimensional pieces...

Tama :)

I remember having to do just that in Art class in High School! We were meant to draw what we wanted to sculpt, then produce a sculpture based on our drawings. I cheated and drew my sculpture AFTER I sculpted it! I got top marks! :lol:

I'm afraid I'm one of those cursed with the "she'll be right" attitude. I do start with a bit of an idea about what I want to carve (occasionally I'll sketch something), but the end product is really what the stone wants to be. If it wants to be a load of rubbish then that's the stone's problem! :lol:

Hula Cat: I've seen many works of art carved in soapstone recently and I'm quite amazed at the skill required to produce them (especially ancient carvings). Hopefully I may produce something similar given time and a lot of practice. I'm enjoying soapstone more and more as I get used to it, so I guess that's the first step to improvement.
You don't need to warn me about the dangers of working harder materials before I'm ready by the way. Unfortunately I've attempted improving a few souvenir greenstone hei-tiki I'd picked up in New Zealand... let's just say "improving" ended up being entirely the wrong adjective :(