Continued carving of Dicovery's right hand, Fourth of July fun

 I mark out the fingers, folds in the palm, etc. with a lumber crayon.  I then mark out the areas of the wrist that need to be removed.  The arm is quite thick at this point.

 I have cut out the two middle fingers of the hand.  The hand is slightly cupped and so I begin with the two lower fingers.

 From this view you can see how I have removed the stone from the two fingers, also I have begun removing stone from the side of the arm.

 I begin defining the indiividual fingers.  They look really crooked at this point and they are also too flat, they need to angle inward.

 The lower part of the hand and pinkie are too high and will need to come down.  Also, the wrist is too high and the forearm is too flat.

 I have cut down the wrist and have just begun to define the outside of the thumb.

 This area of the forearm will be removed.

 I mark the under the fingers that will be removed.

 I grind the hand with a masonry blade so that I have a smoother surface.  The diamond wheel, while it is much faster, leaves a choppy surface.  Smoothing the surface makes seeing the form easier. 

 After I get the palm close to the way I want I begin work on the outside of the hand.  I mark the joint of the first finger and mark where the bottom of the hand is in the stone.

 I have cut the thumb in and am taking away stone to form the rest of the hand.

 It's getting there, a bit blocky still, but it's coming along.

My family celebrated the 4th of July at my brother's house.  This is my brother mark demonstrating the proper way how to hold a ladyfinger firecracker in your teeth to avoid getting hurt - bite hard!  He was just fooling around folks, he loves fireworks, but he's always safe with them.
My niece Emily watches....

 The fireworks were fun....

  .............and they seemed to be everywhere, the front yard, over the neighbors house.....

but this sunset beats them all for beauty.....