Sunday, September 18, 2011

Yep, it's the same piece . . .



In working on this half of the stone I sawed in half, it became clear that this half needed to be vertical. I resisted this at first because it meant finishing the bottom to be consistent with the rest of the piece. Finally, I knew that I had to do it, and I really like the result. I'm now excited about the piece again and will probably finish it within a week or so and then go on to resolve the other half of the original sculpture as a second piece. That one, I'm guessing, will retain a horizontal attitude. Oh, one more thing - I did go ahead and remove the dark red section of stone that had been at the top. I did this by cutting a notch in the stone where the red part had been, and I think it added some real dynamism to the piece, especially in the new vertical position.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Change of plans. . .






As this piece neared the finish - I actually had started to sand it - I finally faced the fact that I didn't like some aspects of it, notably the "unfinished" center. I realized early on that I would not be able to bring the inaccessible inside portions to a smooth state and had planned to leave them rough, finished only by a toothed chisel. Unfortunately, this focused too much attention on that unfinished part, so I decided to take the extreme step of sawing the piece in half to create two separate pieces that could be finished on both sides, but still leaving the bottoms rough. Interestingly, I ended up with three pieces when the end broke off one of the sides when I started working on it. At this point, the whole project is unresolved, but I have started working on one of the halves (the one whose end broke off) and a shot of it is shown above along with some photos of the "surgery".
Now my dilemma is this: without the other side with its extensive areas of dark red stone, the lone area of that color looks isolated and out of place. So, do I modify the top profile by carving it off or leave it?