The Part Where Nothing Happens

 

Project supervisor, and lead critic, Buddy the Cat

 

 

Where was I? Oh, yeah, The stone...

I had a post ready last Friday morning. I got all inspired, and took some time to write about the creative process that goes into composing one of my carvings. Holy cow, I was on a burn! The post was ready to go. All I needed to do was rotate one photo, and click, "publish". Just rotate a pic. (Can you guess where this is going?) Of course. The whole post vanished. Ctrl  Z? 

no.

But anyway... First off, thank you to the folks who have dropped by, and especially to those who have had some kind words for my last stone piece. Many thanks to Gerard at American Digest. I will be posting updates on the project every Monday from now until whenever I'm done with it. Stone carving isn't much of a spectator sport. Nothing happens fast, and there are many days where the job is just sitting, and looking.

I've a lot on my mind of late, and I may post irregularly on other stuff.  You know: bikes, cats, everything else, too...

I left off last Thursday after grinding the quarry scars off the face of the rock.  Now I'll have a clean surface to sketch on. I got some help hoisting it up onto the table.  With some difficulty, I can roll the rock around, and pull it upright. The next part  of the job is determining how the stone is going to sit. What position shows the stone to its best advantage? All the pictures so far show the rock sitting horizontally.

 

 I had a few ideas how to work it as a horizontal figure. But the stone has great potential as a vertical piece as well.

 

 

 Standing the rock on end will make for a more dramatic composition. It's going upright.  I'll find the points of balance, and get a fix on the stone's center of gravity. Then I can determine where to cut the base. But doing it is  going to present me with a few problems. The picture below is a top view of the stone. Notice the right end. That narrow point is the bottom.

  

The stone is precariously balanced on its nose, and all the mass is off to the right. The fat part has to sit level.

The last couple of days I've been brainstorming on how to set the stone up for the base cut. The rock has to be blocked up solidly,  all the lines have to be on the bubble, and the base cut has to be absolutely flat. 

 Actually, "brainstorming" is a nice way of putting it. I've been wrestling with both the rock on the table, and the shapes inside my head like the designated underdog in a WWE match. Once my head locks in on a project I can't shut it off. I'm beat up.

But I have the plan for setting up the base cut, and one of my sketches is looking a lot like the rough draft for a layout on the big stone. Later this morning, my buddy, John is coming over to help with the technical stuff. With a little luck We'll have the base cut done by afternoon.

JWM