Another small stone

Revelation (pink alabaster - July 2009)

Seize: diameter appr. 12 inch x height appr. 8 inch

In the store I was looking for a hard stone. Untill I saw the pink alabaster. I had never tried this before and I was curious for the colour in the transparant stone. So, home I went with this stone. I fell not just for the colour but also for the seize and its weight (appr. 52 pounds; ideal for a hot summer day).

When I was ready to begin I had no idea of what to make. There were just too many ideas. Therefor I decided to begin peeling the stone, which had to be done anyway. Its skin was very hard, glassy-like.

Once the peeling was done I focussed on the shape again, turned the stone on different sides to see what would be the bottom. It didn't take long to choose that side. I was a step further but still I had no clue what to make. I have learned not to worry about that and just begin. If I work like that the chiseling usually goes lots easier. Apparantely I am not the type to have a strict plan.

So I began chiseling by following the stone's lines and natural shape. It didn't take long before I saw the three 'points'. It would be something like a star or a flower.

Along I went untill it was time to decide what to do with the centre. At first I thought making a deep empty centre would be nice, but then the idea came of making a kind of ball in the middle. This meant I couldn't chisel much more.

As always, this piece of alabaster was full of cracks with mud or clay. Especially the three points were too fragile, with all the cracks, to hit it with a hammer. Apart from that, hitting alabaster can cause bruises in the stone which can be annoying in a transparant stone.

It was time to begin filing. Hours and hours I have been filing. Sometimes I had to put the stone in water to be able to see what needed extra filing, which is hard to see on a dry and dusty stone.

Although I knew what to do with its centre, I still had to figure out what to do with the outer parts. Again many possibilities passed by but in the end I decided to keep it simple and plain. Too many lines, details or extra shapes would make the stone gaudy. And that is something I don't like. I like simplicity, just the essence ...

Finally it was time for sanding the stone. Beginning with paper number 100 up to 600 for the entire stone. And then up to 2000 for the ball inside.

During the sanding I discovered some deep bruises. Despite of filing most of it. Sanding or filing them away would mean having to go quite deep. That would change its shape. It's a pity but as there are also many white bits in the stone itself, it's not very annoying. And next time I will keep the chisel more flat, hoping to cause less damage.

Once the sanding was done, I let the stone dry again and then I polished it with polishwater.

Something light and small

CURL (serpentine - July 2009)Size: 7 x 20 inch

Although I still have several big stones I wanted to sculpt a small stone this time. Reason was the easy turning of the stone during the sculpting. For several years I had this piece of serpentine, which weighed only 13 pounds, so it had the perfect size. At first my plans for this stone was sculpting a female figure, standing up, but I didn't feel like making anything like that. I wanted to be surprised by the stone. So I began, with all options open, followed its lines and let me be guided by it.

Very soon I saw the shape of a chess piece and I thought for a moment of making a chess piece, but I didn't. I neglected this shape and continued. One thing I knew for sure, and that was the socle. The socle was included in this stone.

While I was chiseling I heard that there was a crack somewhere in the stone, which is not unusual for serpentine. Apart from cracks, serpentine very often has different structures in one stone; from very hard, to very soft. That makes this stone unpredictable and full of surprises, and that's what I like about it, apart from the different colours it also has.

After a while I decided I wanted to make a hole in it. So, rather soon, I drilled a hole. Soon, because drilling is always a bit risky. If it would break I still would have lots of possibilities to change the shape. But not too soon, because the hole in the stone makes it more fragile.

After the drilling I stopped chiseling and began filing. The combination of the crack and the hole had made this stone too fragile for being hit with a hammer. Filing was hard as there were many very hard parts in it, which seemed almost impossible to shape.

During the filing I realized that a 'closed' hole would look silly. So I opened the hole completely and the curl was born.

When the filing was done I began sanding (number 100 to 2000). As the sanding is done in water I could finally see the stone it's true colour and structure ... and I was amazed by the beauty of it. I also saw what had given me a hard time ... there were lots of glassy parts and veins which were very hard, and which made it difficult to get a round shape.

After sanding I warmed the stone and polished it with stone polish.

Alabaster full of cracks

NEW LIFE (Alabaster - June 2009)
















Size: 10 x 14 inch

This stone was bought some years ago. At that time I was looking for a stone to sculpt the 'Knot'. As I only had eyes for shapes I forgot about the quality of the stone. Once I started chiseling I discovers all the cracks. Making the 'Knot' would be impossible; it would break within no time. So I put this stone aside, untill recently.
After sculpting several hard stones I wanted a softer stone for a change. The moment I had it in my hands I knew it had to be something egg-shaped or ball-shaped. The stone already had this shape in itself. But the main reason for this shape was that it would be nice with all those cracks, and it is a 'safe' shape for such a stone.
At first I peeled the skin off the stone. Soon I saw a 'strip' which was darker than the rest of the stone. I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep this strip or remove it.














To postpone this decision I began filing the stone. Chiseling was too risky as alabaster, and especially this piece, is fragile and gets those white spots like bruises easily. To avoid that I filed a big part of the stone. But, after having filed hard stones lately, this was quite easy and didn't take long. In the meantime I also placed the stone on different sides to see what was best.
I decided to keep the 'strip' and filed that as well. With this 'strip' the stone looked a bit like a germinating bean or seed, or as if something (liquid) comes out of the stone.
Still, getting a round shape was fairly difficult as there were some quite deep holes in the stone which made some parts 'flat'. Also most cracks were harder than the surrounding stone.














After filing with the fine file I saw that the strip wasn't darker than the rest of the stone. I hesitated if I would file the strip as well, or just leave it like that. I filed everything.
And then I used sandpaper (number 100-2000) and finally I polished it with stonewater.














At first I wanted to put it on a lovely piece of green-ish granite I have. Unfortunately my tools don't have the power to drill granite. Instead I put it on a piece of white alabaster. The colour fits and an organic (natural) shape looks nice on a rough natural shaped socle.

A new challenge: Dolomite

UNINHIBITED CHEERFULNESS (dolomite - spring 2009)















Size: 7 x 12 inch

A year ago I had bought this piece of dolomite (44 pound). Although I am not so fond of Limestone I thought I should at least give the dolomite a try.















I had many ideas of what I could make of this stone. I made several clay-models, all with 'swirling' as a starting point. As I had to finish other stones first, this one had to wait until January 2009 before I finally began.
It didn't take long to decide I would sculpt without the clay-models. They were limiting me. So, with the movement of swirling in my mind I continued cutting the stone. This, and the stone itself, were guiding me.















Although you would expect Limestone to be fairly soft, I soon found out it was hard. It also needed a different technique in cutting. The shells in the stone made it even more difficult. Sometimes they came out completely which caused a hole. Then I began to realize that my original idea might not be possible: having the stone taper off. It would probably break. So I had to simplify the swirl.
This fact brought me to the idea of having the stone entwined. I drew a line so I would know where to cut, and continued.















When the rough shape was done I changed from the pointed chisel to the tooth chisel and then to the flat chisel. The holes the pointed chisel made were too deep.
Still, I had no clue what to do with the point of the stone. I didn't know how to end the swirl. But, as always when I am sculpting, I trusted I would know by the time I would get there. And so I did. While I worked my way to the last part, the shape appeared almost by itself. I didn't think of what I was doing, I just filed and there it was. A yin-yang-symbol-like point.















When that was all done I filed the stone and chiseled the swirling part with a very fine carving pen and a hammer.

After the filing it was time for sandpapering. It took many hours to sandpaper all the way from sandpaper number 100 to number 1200.















My opinion about Limestone needs a little adjustment. From now on Dolomite is on my list of favorite stones for sculpting.

Renewing an old stone

SAFETY (Alabaster - April 2009)















Size: 20x20x13 inch

This piece of alabaster was my first, after I decided to try a stone harder than soapstone. This piece was about 40 pounds and I had absolutely no clue what I wanted to make. The only thing I knew that it should be something with embrace and safety. I began peeling the stone. I was so attached to the veins of red earth in a part of the stone that I couldn't cut that off. So I sticked to the shape and lines of the stone. I just couldn't cut so much of this beautiful stone off. I wanted to keep it all. As this attitude was limiting the sculpting I began shaping the ball first. When that was done I still didn't know what to do with the outside part, so I stretched the lines and shape more, and that was it. It didn't have the result I wanted but I didn't know what to do without cutting off those lovely coloured parts.
For several years the stone was put away in some corner of a spare room. I didn't really care about the stone. Deep down inside I knew what I had to do but I couldn't admit it to myself because that would mean I had to get rid off all those pretty but useless (and annoying) lines.
Then, in April of this year, I had the courage to give the stone a make-over. Of course I had more experience and a different way of looking also, so I could see better what was wrong.
I got my hammer and chisel and hit big pieces off the stone, without really watching or thinking. Then I began filing. After that I did the outside part with sandpaper till number 650, and the ball - which I hadn't changed - till number 1500. Then I polished the whole stone with polishwater.






























Although I didn't mean to, the stone became heart-shaped. But, this is good, as that shape fits perfectly well with 'embrace', 'safety and protection of something precious and fragile'.

A new experiment with marble: 2009

MANDALA (marble - 2009)

Size: 20 x 20 inch

Several years ago a friend had found some marble floor tiles in the shed of his appartment. Although I had no clue what to do with them I asked him a few of those tiles.

This winter I couldn't sculpt at home as it was too cold in the shed. One night I was drawing a Moroccan tea set. I was looking at the tray with a Moroccan mandala carved in it. Suddenly I got the idea of carving this mandala in such a floor tile. This was something I could do inside the house. Not everybody would agree with that but to me there are more important things in life than a perfectly clean and dust-free house.

Anyway, I got one of the tiles from a dark shed. During the carving I realized I should have picked one of the other tiles which was more suitable for my idea.

I drew the mandala on a piece of paper and from there on, onto the tile. Many hours, days, I have spent carving this tile. If I had known how the stone would react to this carving I would never have done this. This was worse than the Portugese marble I made 'Balance' of, especially because these were curly lines. Every other inch the structure and hardness was different. Some parts were fine and fairly easy to carf, but most parts were as if little pieces of glass came off, and a straight and sharp line was impossible to make.

At first I had planned to make this relief quite deep but considering the structure of the stone I decided to leave it like this. Carving deeper would ruin the mandala as lots of lines would break off completely.

If I would ever do this again I would get a totally different kind of stone, with a fine structure.

Still, I had fun doing this and it was an experiment. Thinking of the fact I have done this by hand, no machines helping me, then I think it's not bad.

My first marble - 2008

BALANCE (December 2008)





















Size: 20 x 20 inch

Marble wasn't my first choice for this sculpture. At first I had a nice piece of diabas, so far my favourite hard stone. But soon after I had begun I discovered a huge crack, right through the stone. I went back to the store to get another stone but there was no diabas available in the size I wanted it. This meant I had to pick another sort of stone. That's how I got to the marble. Not my kind of stone but why not give it a try?
As I had to get used to another way of cutting stone I progressed slowly. After a while my cutting skills improved and I even enjoyed this marble.
My intentions were to get a perfect sharp line but as this is Portugese marble, which has a different structure than Greek or Italian marble, this was not possible. Small bits kept breaking off. By the time the chipping was done and I could begin filing I discovered a crack. Not through the whole stone, which would have been better in this case, but just along one side. Then, when I was almost finished, a bigger piece came off. Instead of filing as much as needed to get the shape round again, I decided to let it be. There was a chance lots more would come off which would mean a total re-shape of the stone. I didn't feel like doing that. Apart from that, nothing is perfect in life, and working with natural materials like stones can be surprising; positive as well as negative.
If you put the stone on one side it's perfectly in balance. Do you turn it around then it's a little out of balance. If you move the stone it finds it's own balance.