Cutting the top of the Lion, Conversation continues and a marble sculpture

 

 

This is the back of the American Lion sculpture. The streaking is from rain washing the dust from the top of the stone.  I have angled the top of the piece so that it slopes toward the back so that rain will run toward the back and away from the carved area in the front and side. Unfortunately the rain is clinging to the stone and running around to the side of the sculpture and going down the Lion's leg.  I need to cut the stone so that the rain is channeled away from the side of the sculpture. 

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I have marked in black crayon the area I need to cut to direct the rain toward the center of the block.  I will then make a deep cut down past the carved area of the sculpture so that the rain will be diverted from the Lion.

This is the top of the stone.  I am going to slope this toward the center of the stone so that rain will run off the back away from carved areas.



I'm cutting stone from the top of the lion while standing on a ladder.  Here is a video -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaZl9FlZp8Y

Seems like a long way down.

The small angle-grinder was not long for this world (transmission gave up the ghost) so I switched to the large angle-grinder.

A view of Conversation from above.

I beveled the edge of the far side of the sculpture. 

Rain has dripped from the ledge overhead, the work I am doing on the top will eliminate the dripping in rain ( or at least most of it).

Working on Conversation.



Photo-morph of Conversation with plants and representation of stone legs.

A model for a marble sculpture working title -"Little Girl".

The rough outline is marked on the stone and sections removed via angle grinder.

Me cutting the marble girl.

Frost crystals on a plant by the creek.

This is the back of the Lion sculpture.  The left side as been beveled, I plan to also bevel the right side as well as increasing the angle on the top of the stone so that more rainwater runs off the back of the piece rather than the front and sides. 

Rain is running down the side of the piece and along the leg (which I don't want)/  The dark area around the Lion's elbow is where rain has run down the sculpture and has frozen there.  By diverting more rainwater to the back of the piece I hope to eliminate much rain coming down in this area.

I need to define the inside of the foot and deepen the shadow between the leg and body.

The ears and muzzle need more refinement.

This photo shows how the deep cut I made around the Lion to separate it from the ledge above also diverts rain water around the sculpture.  The streaking on the ledge was caused by rain washing off the dust from the top of the stone.  Before I made the cut around the lion rain would leave streaks across the body of the Lion.  Not anymore.   Pretty neat.

I just got a casting of "Flight" back from Art Castings Foundry in Loveland Colorado.  I plan on doing a 12 foot tall version some day.  This will be your view as you walk up to it.

Ely was accepted in the National Sculpture Society's Group show at Naples Botanical Gardens in Naples Florida. 

Bubbles in ice.

A break from the Lion, mentally and physically

The American Lion will not be going to Alaska until later this year so I decided to take a break from it mentally as well as physically.  I like to take a mental break from a sculpture(if I can) so I can come back to it with "fresh eyes". Then any mistake really jumps out at me.  I use a mirror a lot while working to get a fresh view of a piece I'm working on, but time and especially turning your mind to something else entirely helps a lot.  This photo of me was taken with a Trail camera - more about that at the end of the post....

To mentally clear my palate I decided to go into a figurative piece I started working on a few years ago.  The pieces name is Conversation.  This is the upper 1/3 of a young woman lying on the ground.  Plants will make up her midsection and there will be stone legs from the knee to feet.
At this point she is fairly clunky and everything is heavy, face, arms, hair, hands.

There are many things wrong with the piece, mistakes I have made along the way that I will now be correcting.  The main problem is that the face is too far out from the hairline.  In the photos below I am refining forms and trying to reduce the heaviness of the face.

I have gotten the forehead back but the brows are now too prominent.  I have started to define the shoulders and hands.

I have taken the brows back but the lips are way too full and the chin is a bit heavy.  The face still needs a lot of refining though it is better than when I started out.

This is a piece I have also been working on (mainly on rainy days) though I can't find the early photos showing  the armature and early stages of adding clay.  I might have accidently picked them up with other photos and put them in a folder.  They'll turn up eventually.

The armature is galvanized pipe I bought from JBB which has an extensive selection of plumbing pipe and fittings.  The pipe I used for this sculpture is fairly small (I believe it is 3/8") and they ordered it especially for me.  The pipe runs through his back and goes out to each hip and each shoulder. A section of pipe runs halfway down each forearm and half way down each upper leg.  I am using hard castilene over the pipe frame and it works wonderfully.  It is as hard as wax and so there is no need for an armature in the lower arms and lower legs.  I work the castilene with a heat gun.

What is this little boy doing?  You'll just have to wait and see....

Another project I have been working on is a time lapse video of me working on the Lion.  I have uploaded two sections (number 1 and 5 of 8) see them here -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zunMiP9WNCw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWYwlE1AwIk
 

The Lion nears completion.....

I have refined the Lion and deeped shadows around the legs. I have also begun refining different muscle groups in the legs and body.

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As the forms are refined the Lion becomes less clunky and the forms of muscle and bone begin to emerge. Angle grinders and die grinders are used to create dark shadows.  The shadows help visually separate the Lion from the surrounding stone.

I have not finished the teeth at this point, at this point I have stopped working on the sculpture so I can come back to it "fresh".  I want to be sure I have the mouth right before I cut the teeth.  Once I cut the teeth in, that's it, I can't make any changes.  The Lion won't be going up to Alaska until next summer so I have time...

I think that I want more dark shadows around the tail and front legs to help those areas to "pop" visually.

This is what the Lion looks like after a rain - the top and bottom are dark and wet, the lion itself is dryI am glad to have the time to live with this sculpture to see what happens when it rains.  I wanted to do an emerging lion so that the carved features would be protected by the overhanging rock.  I have cut the top of the block so that it angles to the back of the stone away from the lion but I need to make a steeper cut as well as angle it toward the center as the water is running down the sides and with time this will prove unsightly. 

The Lion in the sun...

I have taken a mental vacation by working on another sculpture called "The Conversation" .  Hopefully this will cleanse my visual palate.

A Queen Annes Lace with fall color...

A pair of Mennonite girls run through a light rain to the store.



A drive through the colors of Autumn - obviously taken a while back...

Refining the Lion

The crayon marks show the areas I need to remove or define. The marks are for the view from the front.

How these marks look from each side the lions right...

The lions left.  I need to drop the eyes further back but I will establish the eyes from the front first.

The lion roughed in.

I want to angle the paw outward and make a note to myself on the stone.  This will entail not only angling out the lower leg, I will have to move the knee out as well by removing stone from inside the leg.

I begin defining areas while I am still a bit high and off the form of the final sculpture.  That way I can see if I like the way it looks before I commit to it.  By carving one area (head, leg, etc.) only partially then moving on to another area I can come back to the first with "fresh eyes" and be able to correct mistakes and make a better piece (hopefully).

At the top of the rock I have made a cut where I will angle the stone back so that rain water will drain to the back of the stone. 

This is the back view of the sculpture after I have cut down the top of the stone and beveled the top on both the side and back.  I will then cut down the other side of the sculpture.

This is a view of the top of the back of the sculpture.  I need to steepen the slope and bevel the edges.



This is Denny Crum competing in a fly casting competition at Cabela's Sporting Goods in Louisville KY.  The local chapter of the Trout Unlimited hosted the competition.  There are 5 hoops in the parking lot which you have to aim for, you have to cast to each one twice.  I was in the competition myself, though I have fished for years it had been a while since I have cast a lure so I was way off the targets...



This is a multicolored window covering as seen through a metal architects rule (triangular ruler).