The carving is finished, the oil is dry, the pedestal is painted and dry...finally, its time to photograph the piece! The photography is not my favorite part of the sculpting process, but its a very important part. It is always a challenge for me...trying to find the right combination of lighting elements, and then placing them in the best positions. It is almost always the case that when positioning a light or lights to best show the form in one area of the sculpture, it isn't so good for another area. Its often the case that finding the best mix of lit and shadowed areas involves compromises. There are an infinite number of possible lighting setups, but having only finite time in life, one has to limit the number of setups! I'll often rearrange the lights 15-25 times for each position I photograph the piece from. Thats a lot of photos to sort through to try to find the best ones. But from out of all those photos, there will usually be a few usable ones. Another view of the "photography studio".
Always a very exciting moment in the making of a wood sculpture.....putting the finish on! Here I am applying the first coat of iron acetate to the carving. It began turning dark within a minute or so...a nice quick transformation! I kept brushing the iron acetate on, giving it a good soaking, then wiped off the surface and let it dry out overnight. The next day, I repeated the process. And here I am brushing on the first coat of my linseed oil finish...boiled linseed oil thinned out with an equal amount of turps. Again, I brushed on the oil repeatedly, and the oak kept on soaking it up....amazing how much it absorbed. Then, I wiped it all down and set it aside to dry. When it felt dry to the touch, I repeated the process again. Just as a print or painting tends to look better for display when it is nicely framed, sculpture that is displayed nicely looks better. Sometimes that means on a pedestal, where it can be brought up to the right height. And a pedestal also acts like a picture frame in a way, highlighting the art and separating it from its surroundings . So here, I am making a pedestal for my raven carving (Still have not thought of a title!) As the making of one of these pedestals creates an enormous amount of fine dust, I previously removed the oiled carving to a different part of my studio to finish drying. Here, the dusty work has been finished, the studio cleaned up a bit, and the pedestal is getting its first coat of primer on the inside. More painting to come....
Well, I guess its been a while since my last post. Its been a busy time for me, and one of the things I have been busy with is getting back to my raven carving! It was time to further define the screwdriver this bird is holding in its beak. I wonder what its doing with that screwdriver? Then there is also the question as to what to do about the large check, or crack, that runs along the bottom of the carving. It has been there since before I started carving the log. Its what happens when a large diameter log starts drying out. As I mentioned in a previous post, I had hollowed out the log somewhat in the base in an attempt to try to keep the check from opening up much further. But the check is there, and the question is, what do I want to do about it? I could either leave it as it is, or try to fill it. Here is the same check, running along the front of the sculpture, up towards the raven's neck. I decided to fill the check by inserting wedge shaped pieces of oak and gluing them to one side of the check. By gluing it to only one side, it allows the check to continue to move if that is what it wants to do. Were I to glue it on both sides, it would likely crack again, as wood, by nature, just wants to move. But before making the wedges, I first needed to chisel out the check and make it so that I could get nice clean seams. Its a bit of a project making a wedge to fit tightly into the check. Here, the wedge is tested, without any glue. After a number of adjustments, I finally get a good fit. The wedge is glued into place. The masking tape is there to protect the carved area next to the seam from getting covered by any glue that is squeezed out of the seam. After the glue sets, I begin to carve the wedge... The one large check running along the bottom of the sculpture has now been filled, as you can see in this photo.The time has now come to remove the carving stand base plate so that I can carve areas near the base that were covered by the plate. The carving process is nearing completion...
This is my friend Bailey. The photo was taken back in October during the Maine Peace Walk. I love this picture of Bailey, as it captures something of his wonderful indomitable spirit. Bailey, who lives on Bainbridge Island in Washington state, did the entire 15 days, sometimes carrying the lead banner for the walk, as in this photo. He always had an eye out for all the cool stuff lying along the side of the road, and would often pick it up and stick it in his pocket or carry it along a ways. Some of that stuff was bolts, washers, hooks, and other scraps of steel. I suggested to Bailey that we might start saving some of those odd scraps to make a sculpture out of. So, when I had some time recently post-walk, I decided to do it! Here are some of those scraps laid out on my welding table. I also needed to use some other steel scraps I had laying about. And here is the finished sculpture.... "Bailey's Scrap" steel 12 3/4" h. x 11 1/4" w. x 9" d. I wanted to make the piece interactive, with a few moving parts, that Bailey could play around with... I'm going to send the sculpture out to Bailey. Hopefully, he'll get it before Christmas...
As I mentioned in my last post, ravens, like most birds, have a lot of feathers. So I have been busy working on feathers. And oftentimes, reworking feathers. As in most of my art work, both in sculpture and print, I find myself not happy with certain parts or areas of what I have worked. And so I go back and rework it to attempt to get it closer to what I am after. This has been the case with this sculpture...I have spent a lot of time reworking areas already carved! But thats the way it is. Here you can see some of the raven's reworked feathers...And for the time being, thats it for carving feathers! I need to begin work on another project...more on that in my next post.
Ravens, like other birds, have a lot of feathers...And so, not surprisingly, I have spent most of my time on this carving working on feathers. As you can see, the basic form of this sculpture is quite simple, but the feathers and the patterns created by the feathers are not. Here in this photo, I have penciled in some of the feather pattern on the raven's back and neck... Beginning to rough in some of those back feathers... A view of the back with feathers carved in... And now roughing in some of the raven's left shoulder. The feather work continues...
One of the things that I love so much about ravens (and there are many things that I love about ravens) is how they seem to change how they look, sometimes appearing very sleek and streamlined, other times appearing with their feathers all ruffled up by the wind or their mood, as in this wonderful photo entitled "All Chuffed Up" by Paul Lantz. I love the textures and patterns the feathers create, and how I feel looking at them...And maybe that chuffed up look enhances the feistiness of these feisty beings. Here I am just kind of roughing the feather forms in below the raven's wing. If you look carefully, you might see the beginnings of what will be the raven's outer left toe poking out from amongst the feathers. I have placed the carving so I can work on the raven's throat and breast feathers... Working on the throat feathers. The raven's outer toe has been defined a bit more and its middle toe is also beginning to emerge from feathers.... It might not be apparent in these photos, but after working on the throat feathers a while, I didn't like so much what was happening, and so I decided to rework much of that area. This photo shows more clearly the raven's left foot. And here you can see that I have also started carving in the raven's right foot. Note the original, still un-fired terracotta maquette on the modeling stand behind the carving. Though I have not stuck very closely to the maquette in the carving, it still helps me to look at it from time to time. And here is a closer view showing some of those ruffled feathers....
As I mentioned in my last post, we have been seeing, and hearing, ravens near our home. Lately, I hear them almost every day. This is very exciting for me. So...it isn't so strange that a raven is the theme of my new piece! Here is the terracotta maquette...still drying and unfired, but enough to give me some idea of what I wanted to carve. I have had this oak log in my studio for some years now. It seems like a good fit for my raven sculpture. The log's outer layer was punky and rather irregularly shaped. And I needed to make a fairly broad flat surface on which the sculpture would sit. After chainsawing, I hand planed to get it somewhat flat. As you can see in the photo, there is already a good sized crack, or check, in the log...a result of the log slowly drying out these past years. Checks come with carving logs...its part of the territory, a fact you have to face... Here I have somewhat squared up the log, getting rid of that punky outer layer and the log's irregularities, making it easier to transfer my design onto the log's four sides. With the chainsaw, I kerf cut down close to the line... After kerfing all four sides, I begin knocking, prying, and chiseling the waste wood off. It makes great kindling for the wood stove come winter... The basic forms of the sculpture are showing. A lot of the original log's wood, and weight, have now been removed. Its time to get the sculpture mounted on my carving stand... Here it is, up on the carving stand. It makes for much easier carving. I have started to rough in the raven's right wing. If you look closely, you can see the pencil lines marking the raven's beak. The fun has begun....
A few days ago, Akemi and I got a chance to witness a bunch of crows (maybe 10-15?) raising a real racket whilst harassing several ravens at our neighbor's place. We see a lot of crows here, and I love it, but ravens are really a special treat, as we don't see them nearly as often. So there they were, flying around in circles and cawing up a storm. One of the ravens landed in a tall spruce and just sat there awhile, occasionally calling out. Its call was quite different than the crows. While the crows kept on circling and cawing, I noticed none came very close to the raven, which just sat there for a few minutes looking mostly unperturbed, and then took off. But before it did, I managed to get some photos, though not very good ones. I wish they would come back more often...Love those beautiful ravens! On the right, my oak sculpture "Raven's Call", and on the left, the real deal... |
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