Carving the left hand of discovery and a buttery moon



Don has blocked the left hand and now I begin carving the form.  I start by establishing the thumb by removing the stone above it.  I have then made cuts to establish the index finger.




I have cut stone from the index finger though it is still thicker than it will finally be.



I then go to the other side of the hand to begin establishing the fingers. First I mark the top corner of the outside of the hand.  I will remove the stone across the area from top to bottom, essentially beveling it.

Meanwhile, Don grinds on the foot of "Discovery".

After beveling the top edge of the hand I make cuts to get down to the top of the pinky finger.

Here is the side view with some of the stone removed.

I use a timber crayon to mark where the fingers are so I can confidently remove stone.

By comparing to the model I can tell areas of the stone that need to be removed - one can see that the index finger of the stone is almost completely dark while the index finger of the model has a good deal of light coming down the side of it.  This means I need to bevel the stone so that the light and shadow match the model.

This stone will be the knee of the piece.  Don is cutting the back flat.

I cut down the fingers of the hand.  I am concentrating on the hand, I will carve the wrist and arm later.



At this point I have not rounded the ends of the fingers.  The fingers should overlap slightly and I will do that ( the fingers will have to angle in slightly) when I am sure of their position horizontally.



I was meltling butter in a pan and thought it looked at bit like the moon...