The finished carving.

The Process:

November 2005 to January 2006
 
Nov. 14

This evening, after I got home, I began my next work. A Blue Heron in black granite. The stone is about 3 1/2 feet long, by one foot wide and about 3 inches thick.

I'll post my progress as I go. So far, I have removed waste stone under the beak and in front of the neck. Just getting started, but I wanted to get it under way.

I have a few pictures of Heron, and used some I had taken at Pubnico in September. Printed out two enlargements, which I will use as guides for the carving. I didn't do a drawing before hand, but I have an image in my head, of what I am after.

Sat., Nov. 19

I managed to work at the carving until about 3:00 PM when I had to switch to other chores. In the morning I was able to complete the removal of the larger pieces of stone, and reached the basic outline shape.

stone with cut pieces placed where they were removed

I changed my mind a a little on the design. Originally I was thinking of having the grasses be as tall as the birds beak, but now they will only come up to the head. The outline shape is wavy, to give a smooth eye travel and a flowing design (hopefully).

The large pieces of stone were removed by cutting with a diamond blade on an angle grinder, and then tapping with a mallet and chisel. The cuts with the diamond blade gives a lot of control over where the break will occur. They all broke away cleanly. I found this part a bit tedious. I prefer the actual shaping and detailing.

After lunch, I began to roughly shape the beak, head and neck. The heron will be swallowing a small fish but this will be detailed later. The tall grass is just left in the stone for now. I want some room to change the position of the head, if I have to. The result is pictured below.

I think it's been about eight hours work, so far.

... continued ... carving a 4 feet high Blue Heron in dark grey granite

Nov. 26

I have managed a couple of carving sessions since I last posted. Things have progressed well so far, although my small grinder is on it's last legs, and the diamond blade is now worn out.

The neck has been slimmed down. The head has been reduced a bit, but has more to go and the same is true of the beak. The mouth opening is suggested but the fish is not yet shaped. I have settled in on the design of the grass as it supports the legs and neck, and have begun delineating the legs.

right   left

The grass will come up one side of the heron and only be around the feet on the other side. This makes the carving almost a relief work as I remove stone from one side to show legs, rather than working completely in the round. The carving is larger than life size, but the stone is actually quite narrow. The end result will be stylised as opposed to completely realistic. The picture below gives an idea of the thickness of the stone when looking at the front.

 
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Dec. 5

I had other projects to work on but finally managed a few hours on the Heron today.

The next step I wanted to tackle was removing some of the stone from the area where grass supports the neck. I would like the grass to be on one side of the bird. This must be done carefully as the stone gets thinner, so I made a series of cuts with the diamond blade and gently tapped with a chisel to break off a small piece at a time. It would be nice not to have the carving break at this point.

Once that was done i shaped a few blades of grass, just to give a feel for how the design would eventually look. Then the back of the neck was defined, and the head and beak slimmed just a little more.

Next I moved to the legs and began to recess the left leg into the grass. A little more stone was removed in the grass around the legs and both were shaped and defined a bit more.

As a final step for the day, the back, tail, and body were rounded to a more graceful shape.

I guess this is now the fourth or fifth carving session. Results pictured below.

 
 
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Blue Heron in granite: finished.

Jan 13 -15, 2006

The demands of the holidays kept me from this work for a while.

The carving is basically shaped and all that remains is finishing the details. First I tackled the head, and beak. Slimming them and just hinting at the shape of the fish being swallowed. The eyes came next. I switched to small diamond bits for this task.

Once I was satisfied with the head, I turned my attention to the feathers on the breast and body. I simply cut lines to show the long skinny feathers on the back and breast. Wing feathers were shaped to be at an angle with some of the top ones only defined by lines. The supporting grass comes up the heron’s left side, but the stone is thin and I wanted to show this support in more of a stylized manner. So the back was simply marked in with a series of cuts, using the diamond blade. See the final pictures below. The right side required more shaping and more thinking on the flow of the grass as it supports the design.

 

Grass ... beneath bird’s chest and ... in the neck area.

The final step in carving was to shape the heron’s toe protruding from the grass, and the carving is complete.

Heron's toe.

Now for the polishing.

This is basically a sanding procedure. But, as you can imagine, granite is not an easy substance to sand smooth. In the early steps I use coarse discs ( 36 or 50 grit ) on an angle grinder. Similar to what is normally used in auto body or boat building shops.

Sometimes I switch to orbital sanding, progressing up to 220 or 320 grit. The next steps are usually done with diamond sanding pads, using grits of 400, 800, 1500, 3000 and finally a polishing pad that contains a very fine grit indeed. The stone begins to show a sheen at 1500 and sometimes I stop there.

Sanding pad and diamond pad.

Details are sanded as I would with wood, using a detail sander, rotary tool, small drums, cones I make myself, and small flap sanders.

For this carving I want a rough shine on the heron and none on the grass. Some of the small scratches will be left, but I will take it to a high shine on some areas of the heron. This will shorten the time spent sanding, and I think it will work well with the way the lines are used to define the feathers. It should also compliment the overall design.

Oops. I forgot one thing. I have to go back and polish the toe that shows through the grass.

The final step was drilling for mounting on a stone block. I plan to leave the bottom fairly rough. Hopefully someone will see this as a nice lawn or garden sculpture.

Permanent mounting can be done if there is a fear of theft. This is accomplished by using epoxy glue and stainless steel rods to join the carving to a cement base which is cast by the customer in their garden or yard.

Later,
   Clifton

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