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.

Fife Coastal Trail

I have begun walking the Fife Coastal Trail but in stages.

It's beautifully broken down into manageable chunks by Walkhighlands.
Due to not having a great deal of time, I chose an easy, short walk first....
St Monans to Anstruther.

A few images from the day. It was very sunny but the wind cooled it down a little as well as the fact is was in March.

The contours and shapes of the rocks really drew my eye so most of the images I have are of rocks.

Sculpture class - first of 10 weeks

And so the classes begin...

sculpture beginning

Wave beginning

Here we are back in the underground carpark, work benches in place and stone ready to go. 

Very happy to say that three people have returned from the week long session last October as well as new students. 

During the last sessions the work was mostly based on one plane but the anti has been upped and the choices are for sculptures that are more fully rounded. This brought about the realisation of how much stone has to be removed before getting to the  interesting carving. There's going to be a lot of graft next week.
Everyone is working so hard that I have no doubts that these sculptures will be even better than the last ones.

Here's a link to the RIG Arts blog about this week's work.

New Commission

Another commission and I now have a happy, smiling face. This time it is a dog portrait. Really enjoying getting back to drawing.

beginnings

moving on

and now a body

nearly there

Much as I have thoroughly enjoyed drawing with pencil again, trying to get the fur looking right on the chest was a bit of a nightmare. A lot of going over it and rubbing out and redrawing.

More Sculpture Classes

Very excited to announce that I will be teaching stone carving again at Broomhill, Greenock with Rig Arts. Yeah! Here's to more fun.

Wow, Look what we've done!

I am one very proud tutor, everyone has worked extremely hard on a difficult project. I am so impressed.

Here are some images of the finished pieces and a wee Stone carving film that was filmed and edited by Chris Falan.

geometric

Broomy's Bees

Merino sheep

The shape of the stone in the images with bird and derrick is to represent the bell shapes that were at the top of the towers on the now demolished Drumfrochar Road Flats. 

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.