Marlbe sculpture progress

Here's what I'm working on now, and here's my website if you want to see other stone sculpture, and better, more detailed photos of this sculpture: http://clay-tablet.wix.com/clayworkman   I plan on posting progress on here to motivate myself to hurry up and get this done. Sculpting stone is slow, at least for me, and it's easy for me to procrastinate chiseling on stone.

Here is the clay model sculpted in an oil based clay. This is not detailed because this clay is kinda soft and I don't really need details in the model. I'm more concerned with where body parts actually are instead of where my brain thinks, or forgets where they are while I'm sculpting the marble.

On this side her leg is off the elevated block and so is her hand. The other side they are on the block.

Here she is as a block of marble. You can see the pencil outline of her on the side of the marble. The block is 21 inches long. Since her left hand and leg are off the small elevated block in the sculpture, I'm also going to sculpt her forward in the block of marble leaving blank space past her knees, but her hair will be on the forward edge of the sculpture, probably hanging over the front edge of the sculpture.

I spent my weekend getting the bottom flat, and sanding it, still some to go, and sculpting the model. Done for today, more sanding tomorrow. Maybe make the first cuts into the stone?

Day 3: bottom is sanded to 60 grit, will make if finer when I get closer to finishing. No reason to sand too fine just to find out I scratched it up while sculpting on it. The block is also squared up. Tomorrow April 15, I have to do my state taxes. Told ya I could procrastinate. So probably won't do any work on the stone.

Day 4: Taxes done. State website sucks.

Day 5: Six hours of chipping away stone. Most of the waste around her knees and right side is done. This marble is a bit harder than other marble I've sculpted, my diamond cutting blade takes forever, I might as well just chip away rather than listen to the noise of that. The marble is not so hard that it dulls my steel bits.
            I can't help but think of the lyrics to the song; I fought the law and the law won. "A'breakin rocks in the hot sun . . ."  Breakin' rocks is a punishment, here I am doing it for fun. That's me, if there's a hard way to do something, I'll find it. I come from a  working family. My Dad has worked full time since he was 12, in fields,  and cutting logs with cross-cut saws, etc. He's in his 80's and still cuts his own firewood. My uncle (at least one of them) used  to go cut oaks with a cross-cut saw, split them, and then hue them square and sell them to the railroad for railroad ties. My last name means builder. I think fitness clubs are ridiculous. And they are a placebo to some. I know several people who think they are in shape because the work out a few hours a week. Try sawing and lifting a sledge-hammer eight hours or more a day. It may not bulk you up, but you will be strong. Anyway, here I am procrastinating breakin' rock. Bye for now.  

Day 6: After plenty of procrastination and other obligations; one hour of chipping and cutting around her left arm and left side.

Day 7: One and a half hours of chipping around her head, left and right arm.

Day 8: Two hours sculpting, form is beginning to show, a little.

Day 9: About two hours sculpting. I got an email reminding me to deliver my juried art piece to the Hockaday Museum of Art in Kalispell, except I never got notified that I was accepted. I went to their website and found my ballerina foot sculpture titled "On Pointe" was there. So that was good news. This sculpture is not part of their collection, it is for a benefit art auction. If you want to see that sculpture hit the link at the top of this article.

Day 10: Fixed a scratch on the foot sculpture.

Day 11:  After two hours sleep drove 120 miles to Kalispell. Had a large Red Bull drink on the way up and a small one on the way back.  Tiny museum, tiny collection, or maybe they have more in storage and rotate pieces for display. I don't know. Probably. Now I just want to sit around and relax after that drive. Have to get my mind back into wanting to chisel rock.

Day 12:  Five hours of chiseling. Frustrating trying to get things in proportion, I only get one shot at that. I'm working on the chest, head, and left arm in relation to each other. Here's a pic.

This is about 23 hours total. I've noticed the same thing about stone sculpting as clay, different people sculpt at different rates. I have used very little in the way of power tools. I cut a few cuts with a diamond saw blade. The rest has been chipped off. What you don't see is all the missing stone. I suppose as I get more used to this, and trusting my judgment, I'll get faster.

Day 13: Fast is not important to me right now. That's a lot of stone and I'm not going to screw it up. Spent one hour.

Day 14:  No work, giving my feet a break, I'm on them all the time.

Day 15, and 16: One hour a day.

Day 17: 3 hours, which is way under what I wanted to accomplish. On the upside, nothing is wrong and I can keep going. I did watch a lot of Netflix. Watched:  El artista y la modelo, or in English that's the Sculptor and the Model. An 80 year old sculptor starts sculpting this model that his wife finds living on the street during WWII in France. It's filmed in black and white and is pretty much pointless but while watching it you will think there must be some point, so you keep watching, but no, no point reveals itself. I won't spoil the ending, and if you watch it and find a point to this movie let me know. I understand his drive to create a masterpiece, but that isn't the point of the movie, not if you know how it ends. I would post a pic of my progress but there is hardly any since the last one. The breast, left and right arm, and head are more defined, that's it, oh and a little more around the ribs and belly.

Day 18: Two and a half hours, but lots of use of the diamond cutting blade, so that made up for some time.

Day 19: Nope.

Day 20: Two and half hours. I have found that when parts are roughed out and bulky I have a hard time seeing the sculpture beneath the stone. Right now her legs look too short because they are bulky, but they aren't too short. Looking at the drawing on the side, and even measuring confirms they are not too short, but they do look short. Optical illusion.

Day 21: Zero

Day 22: Four and a half hours.

Day 23 One hour. Picture at day 23. Thirty-nine hours of work.

Day 24: Four hours and Forty-five minutes.

Day 25: Two hours and 40 minutes.

Day 26: One hour and 45 minutes. 

Day 27: One of those days back up there I didn't do anything on it, instead I made a 20 sided die out of soapstone for a guy I work with. What a pain that was. The die was a couple of inches across, my hands cramped up holding that little stone and tools to grind, sand, and polish with. 

Day 28: Two hours, so not motivated. On the other hand nothing gets screwed up when not working on it. 

Day 29: Four and a half hours. Her legs are mostly defined.  

MY GOAL: To finish in less than two weeks from now. Completely finished to a polish.

With two weeks to go I'm going to put the last two week's days in parenthesis to keep track of those two weeks.

Day 30 (1): Two and a half hours.

Day 31 (2) Two hours.

Day 32 (3): One and a half hours.

Day 33 (4): Today sucks, all the time. One hour. SIXTY ONE HOURS (ABOUT) TOTAL. I think I can get done on time. Next two days will be finishing up the rough sculpting; down to her form. After that it's just prettying up and squaring up, and sanding. A lot of work.

Her legs look a little short in this photo, it's the camera, and the bulkiness that remains. The lower part of her leg looks short too I just noticed. Her heel is not that low, her toes are about even with her hip, doesn't look like that in the photo. My camera distorts too much.

Day 34 (5) Had other things to do.

Day 35 (6) Four and a half hours

Day 36 (7) Two hours. I'm not going to make it in seven more days. Too much rock to remove that is in difficult places, plus I still have to do her face. Right now she's just a block-head.

Day 37 (8): Feet were killing me, did nothing.

Day 38 (9) Four and a half hours.

Day 39 (10)  Two hours.

Day 40 (11) Nothing

Day 41 (12) One hour chopping the waste in front of her knees; 32 cubic inches of stone in an hour turned to little chips. I did use a diamond blade to make a few cuts and knock off  a few hunks, still took an hour.

Day 42 (13) One hour chipping away under her knees. Kinda boring.

Day 43 (14) I don't know I lost track. I know I didn't make my self-appointed deadline, by a long way.

Day 44, 45, 46, 47, 48. Nothing, took a break. I'm actually itching to get back to it. I take a few whacks at it once in awhile just walking by.

Day 49: One and a half hours.

Day 50: Four and a half hours. I mentioned the movie The Scuptor and the Model and said it was kinda pointless. I read an NPR review of the film, they also thought it was kinda pointless. It keeps popping into my thoughts. I guess I can relate it to it more than I thought at first. I can relate to the frustration of trying to find "the idea" to sculpt. And how others perceive me, the model didn't quite get what was going on. He shows her a sketch by Rembrandt as the finest picture ever drawn and they talk about it and she sees what Rembrandt was trying to convey. I think Bernini was the greatest sculptor that ever lived. Not the greatest man, but greatest sculptor. He could convey an idea, beautifully.

Day 51: One hour

Still along way to go. Her legs are still a little bulky, making them look a little short. I hope that's all it is.

I have not given up on this but I did take a 15 minute break to sculpt in clay and this is what I ended up with:

Alison Krauss portrait sculpture

Alison Krauss sculpture

This definitely did not take 15 minutes, it took a lot longer. I initially did take a 15 minute break to see if I could sculpt a complete face in 15 minutes. I came close, but since I had this almost finished face I thought, why not try to sculpt someone specifically. I started with a fist sized ball of clay, the final product is probably slightly larger than life. And before I got this done I got a commission to do this:

alabaster rose sculpture

Stone sculpture carved in alabaster and soapstone (green).

And just as I was starting to sculpt on my reclining nude marble sculpture again, I got another commission for a marble rose. 

Here is where I am now on the marble nude:

If I were dishonest I would say I changed my mind and want her arm down by her side, but I broke it off while chiseling between her body and arm. I am amazed how much this does not piss me off. Part of the reason, I think, is there is no warning; it doesn't start teetering, nor does a crack appear like in a cartoon and you panic as it spreads. No, it just plops off. Also, I'm not done anyway so it's not a total loss, I just have to sculpt another arm. You can see where the new arm will be in the blue lines, her hand will be down by her foot. I think it looks better, or will look better, now her arm will not be in front of her face. The fun of sculpting stone.

January 10, 2015. I'm still going to get back to this sculpture. Right now I have three commissions to do and a day job and general life to interfere. Hopefully this will be the year I go to sculpture full time.

September 22, 2015  Keeping track of time was demoralizing, so I gave up on it and just worked on it when I could.  Done. 150 hours total, I'm guessing. So a month's work, if I worked about 40 hours a week.

What a difference huh? I intentionally picked a difficult pose to sculpt. Since this is one rock, except for the flower which is alabaster and soapstone (leaves), there were some difficult places to reach. Under her back obviously. Between her foot and leg, and under her legs. I figured if I could do this, I could do anything in stone. Now sculpting lace has my curiosity, might work that in sometime, on something.