Last Week - No. 10

It has arrived... the last day of the stone carving and I feel a little sad, but so very proud of all the students. Their commitment and hard work has really paid off.
The finishing stages and I get to go around picking out all those wee bits that make all the difference to the piece.

The finishing touches of a project can take almost longer than the main bulk of stone removal but we didn't have the time.

I did a little smoothing off the flat plains for a few people, just to move it along so they could get to the best bits.

Here they are:

Jim's piece

Mike's piece

Monica's piece

Mary's piece

Alice's piece

Alice's piece

This piece is a two sided sculpture, the owl and the tree are on the same stone.

Angela's piece

Angela's piece

Another two sided sculpture, Laurel and Hardy.

Mike's boar

Mike's tree of life

Rhia's wave form

Rhia's clam shell

The reason all this was possible is because of RIG Arts, and their Broomhill Project, community arts and heritage in Greenock.
Here is a link to their website with the final stone carving workshop post.

Penultimate week - No. 9

Another new student today. Running out of stone of a usable size as I haven't had time to split anymore or, in fact, move any. The sizes left are very large. Luckily there was a smallish piece that had been knocked off Rhia's block.

Meet Daniel, he just came for the 1st session but quick to learn.

Daniel beginning

Daniel concentrating

A full class today so I didn't get much time for my own piece of sculpture, although I got to do a little helping out here and there.

the boar

Mike finished his boar and I must say it's looking fabulous.
(I was pulled up for not being effusive with my compliments. Old habits die hard. I tend to use tone of voice rather than describing words to show my admiration - for the rest of the lesson I tried lots of different words)

Jim's new face

The new face

I'm really impressed with everyone and how they've learnt - I hardly ever have to correct tool usage.
So here are the hands at work....

Rhia

Mary

Monica

Daniel

Alison

Angela

Jim

Mike

Daniel was happy with his final piece, a take on ancient cave paintings. He had great control of the tools.

All in all a very lovely days teaching. Well done everyone.

5 Weeks in.

Today I was going to be splitting some stone to provide new pieces to work on, hoping for more students, but the weather decided against that idea - was just wet the whole time - and as there is no electric in the garage, it would have necessitated cables outside.. A definite no no.
So we just got on and chiselled away at that stone.

I'm really loving how all the sculptures are looking.
Today, no photos of the class, the room isn't changing, but plenty of the stone.

The boxer appearing

Eyes this week

Wave forming

Owl wing

More and more, I'm able to let the students just get on with their work and only a little instruction or suggestion here and there, proud of them all.

Owl

Boxer

Head

Wave

Knot

That's all for this week folks, looking forward to the next.

Week 3 at Greenock

Hard at work.

The head is coming along and a wave is appearing under the hammer and chisel of Rhia.

Angela

Angela's sculpture is going to be Laurel and Hardy with the bowler hat combing the two faces at opposite ends of the stone. Great idea, looking forward to seeing this progress.

The Wave

There's a knot!

Another great week, everyone works so hard, I'm really impressed.

Roll on next week.

2nd week at Broomhill

Looking forward to beginning today but also wondering how many people will turn up because of course it's Mother's Day too.

As it happened, there were 3 students and so I decided to start on a piece myself which will go to the community garden.

Mike at work

Having a wee chat while Mike progresses with his head. The style he's chosen is ancient with minimal depth of features, although there is still a fair amount of stone to be removed.

Ray of Sunshine

Owl

Ray of sunshine is a practice piece that I have set out for students to just have a go without worrying about keeping to a plan. Although I really like how it looks.
And the Owl is by Alice, who's never tried this before and Dawn, who worked on an amazing Aztec style piece last year. They decided that the stone suggested an owl to the so that's what they've gone for. This image is at the end of the day.

..... and my own beginning.

The design is to represent sugar cane bound by ropes with a weaver's knot and a sailor's knot.

A good week with a fair amount of progress.

Check out further updates from  RIG Arts about the workshops.

Feeling Proud

Yes, I am feeling very proud.
Everyone worked so hard and produced some lovely sculpture.

trying the tools

One of the ladies produced this on her first day, never having used the tools before. The shapes are representative of the roofs on the flats opposite. Definitely going to incorporate these into the final design.

Moving the stones

After getting everything going yesterday we have discovered that we were put in the wrong place.
So it's all change, luckily Rebecca was here to help me lift the stones up and down. The benches weren't too difficult to move, just unwieldy.

No young ones turned up for the morning lesson which was a bit of a shame but also really useful.
Heras fencing was put up for us by a very nice as well as helpful man, and we covered it in tarps to prevent the stone pieces flying out of our compound.

our sculpture compound

Move over and this site is much better, for light and the fact that we can be seen by passers by. The idea is to get the community interested in the project because it's about their area, Broomhill.

The ideas that appeared this morning from the homework I set yesterday are inspiring. I really enjoyed hearing the stories from everyone about this area, where their parents/grandparents had worked, what it was like, and who had actually lived in the flats that are being demolished.