Wednesday, January 12, 2011

fur and more fur - detailing the cubs

I am carving the claws of the cub that is being cleaned by its mother. This is a ball diamond burr with 1/4" shank.

These are some of the diamond burrs that I use for carving the bear's claws, nose, fur, etc. The ball is very effective for removing stone when I start to define an area. I start with the largest burr to begin carving the form, and then work down to smaller and narrower burrs. The two burrs on the right are used more for fur, the point for creases and to define eyes, nose, etc. When carving a form it is best to think about carving around the form instead of carving on the form. If that makes sense. I get diamond burrs from www.lopacki.com

This is the hair inside the mother's right rear leg. The interior areas of the sculpture are some of the most difficult, as I have to use a large die grinder which is slow and the area needs to be blown out periodically as the dust loads up pretty quick.

This is the intersection of the cub's foot, mother's left elbow and her rear leg. I have just begun to define it - it will need a little deeper carving to get the definition that I want.

I have carved out the area between the cub's upper arm and the mother's back foot and have applied a fur pattern. Also, I have opened the area between the cub's head and mother's back foot and I have blocked out the mother's claws.

The bears, from the right side.

This is the left side of the bears. I have recarved the mother's shoulder and have reworked the mother's fur texture on this side, but I will go back and add more depth with deeper carving. The fur needs several passes to get the look that I'm after.
Juanita was in my last post and I thought I'd show you another of my donkeys, Ed. He has had a treat and is begging for another. Can't you tell he's saying "Please?"

A Doe looks at me while her fawn eats cracked corn. We started feeding deer accidentally. The store where we buy sweet feed for the donkeys loaded up a bag of cracked corn by mistake. Corn is too rich for the donkeys to eat, so we started feeding the deer and once you start, it's hard to stop.

This is a snow flake on the car window surrounded by frost crystals .

3 comments:

patrickgracewood said...

The new bear sculpture is wonderful.

I just caught your tag line and am still laughing.

I once saw a show of Russian architects who designed a square of enormous stone sculptures for "People who love heavy and difficult to move objects." We are a small but powerful subset of the general population.

Meg said...

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it.

The ordeal for me right now is working in the cold - trying to do delicate finish work while my hands are freezing. Ah, well, in stone carving there are three temperatures that make it difficult to work - too cold, too hot and too nice.

I'd like to see that show, sounds interesting.

Alistair said...

Just wanted to say that the bear sculpture looks great. It's got lots of life and movement-nice work Meg!