I have decided to start with this sculpture because in this instance “the line” forced me to pierce the stone. I started to cut the small of the back and just couldn’t resist creating a hole for my hand to sit in. That perfect curve is influential demanding and powerful! This photo was taken by Matt Luttmer.

This next one shows balance strength and grace. If not for “the line” this sculpture would not have been possible. The perfect curve hugs the ring allowing the body to rest in a simple pose. This photo was taken by Alicia Hoogveld.

Another basalt piece with “the line” cut in a very similar fashion but evoking a different feeling!

A different view of the same sculpture. Both photos by Alicia

Here you can clearly see how “the line” influences the shape, dynamic nature, and emotion in this piece. Photo by Matt.

You can see the exaggeration of “the line” in this beautiful piece of Larch wood

Even in this rough Bronze casting you can see it.
“the line” exists in nature and I am influenced by it. Thanks for reading.

This one has my hand made Japanese carving axe.
Next

Both of these are only roughed in Right now I’m will finish them before the show in October.
The rest of these pics are fir.
First up is a bunny. Yup you see a lot of rabbits in my work. Don’t know why. I just dig them.
As usual it starts with a loose sketch

Then rough blocking out.

Then I decided to hose it down with some silver spray paint. This is a huge departure for me and I’m very excited about the possibilities.

This is all the sawdust I generated cutting the first 3 pieces. Trivia.

Now on to the Fox!

Red Fox! This is super cool.

Now an owl.

White Owl

And now for my favorite Munkey madness!!!

He turned blue! Blue Munkey! Blue Munkey!

I’m calling them Monochromes!

There you go people. Now you got writing and sculpture and painting all from me in the same post.
I am @thegorilladidit on twitter if you want more accurate or up to date info on my doings.

Any how I got to be the one who made the awards for best of the best. THis year is the 50th anniversary for TC and they wanted to do some thing really special. So they came to me with a pretty simple concept. They wanted a hand holding a cowboy hat. I said sure whats your budget ? ( man I’m greedy) I can say that anyone who got one of these awards got something really special!

I came up with an idea pitched it to them and they said no go back and do better!!!
No they didn’t just joking ! ha
We were actually pretty much eye to eye on this they loved it! whew Great for me! Now all I had to do is make them. So how do you make a cowboy hat out of stainless steel? ???
Well let me tell you how I did it!
First I made whats called a die. Its what I call a die any how. I took a section of round, solid ductile iron rod with a diameter of about 2 1/2 inch. I then cut the negative of a cowboy into it. So if you filled the inside of this hole up and took that fill out you would be looking at the cylindrical pert of a cowboy hat. You know the part you stick your head into. Then I grabbed a 3 lb sledge hammer and cut that to look like the inside of a cowboy hat. Or really just made it fit really nicely into the hole I cut into the piece of rod. Then I take that whole apparatus put it into my press with a piece of 20 ga. stainless steel sheet in-between the two and press them together. So what happens is the negative or hole gets filled with the positive and the stainless sheet gets sandwiched in between. looks like this.

Hammer stainless Iron sandwich

This is what the sheet of stainless looks like from the inside while its sitting in the iron negative.

Stainless sheet after pressing

This is after the first press. It’s pretty wavy around the brim area so I take it to the anvil and flatten it.

After flattening the brim.

This is all 11 of them stacked ready to have the brim cut and shaped.

I have done several posts with the making of hands and feet detailed so I don’t feel like I need to do that again. Here are the hats and hands.

Here is a shot of all hats and hands cut welded polished and ready for the black walnut base.

And this is with the base. After this I did a nice French polish on the walnut to bring out that sexy grain and handed them over for presentation.
This was a very cool project for me. I had not done multiples of the same piece before. They were well received and I think I will be doing some work for them next year again. Happy me happy customer happy recipients. Life is good.

Sorry this is a sculpture blog not a sex post.

Anyhow I came up with this idea last year and have been very successful with it. I have recently had a bunch of spare time so I got a whole bunch of these pieces finished up and my Brother/Photographer took some pics of them for me So I thought I would share them.
These pieces are either stainless steel or bronze. In the case of the bronze they are cast in 3 separate pieces ( head+body, legs, arms) then I cut them position the bits then TIG weld the thing back together. So really even tho the bronze is cast it’s manipulated enough after the fact that it is pretty much a one of a kind in the end.

I am hoping to do an instalation of 10-12 of these in one room. I think that would be pretty interesting to look at.
I hope you enjoy.

This was a polishing day both the Little Lady and the Gorilla got shined up

2 for the price of 4

Then the second of the 4 foot columns hopped up on the bench for me

You can't move that... its too big

Draw and split then cut and trim.

Block head babe

For the faceless masses

Just needs a bit of the old rub rub... know what I mean

Thank you Egypt for showing me my first basalt figure

For those that don’t know me I have been fascinated with Egyptian sculpture for years. I just can’t seem to get enough of it. They carved Hard stone with soft tools. I owe lots of my inspiration to this ancient work by unknown individuals.

On to the next one!

Seems like I've been here before

There it is the biggest of the big ones ready to go. Ive never had a chunk of stone this big in my studio before  moving it was interesting! I will buy more of this stone to carve it is sensational!!! First I need some more money tho… So some one buy something.LOL

Here it is after 2 days

Thats up to date as of yesterday. Gonna get her finished this week! look for results on twitter @thegorilladidit

thanks for looking again

Basalt Carving pt 2

Hold Fast

Just a couple photos for you as well. Please feel free to leave comments on the video!

just needs polish

I left you with a photo of a mini column. I had shown you some progress on one of the bigger columns as well. since then I have finished 2 of the smaller columns and got a really good start on one of the really big ones. Here are some in progress and ready to polish shots .

Sharpie

This is where I start. The curves in this column really suggested the female form so I went with it. Draw first with yellow crayon for rough then closer to with blue or red depending on the colour of the stone then final with black sharpie. Don’t use sharpie on white marble or any where near your finish cause is sinks right in and you have to cut it out.

Hazy shade of studio

That great big Diamond blade really dusts up the place when you cut dry. Kind of a cool effect. I have started to cut the silhouette here.

Ive cut down the other side and cut the front of the legs. All done with a 9 inch diamond blade with a flush cut adapter.

From the other side. Ive started to cut out around the Breasts. You can see I haven’t made the side cut for the leg yet. I found a fault in the stone and it changed my design idea.

I got really focussed and forgot to take more progress pics. So here she is done ready to polish with the next column beside her. She is 38 inch tall and 85 lbs.

You can see I left the fret cuts in the waist on her back and the skin on the front. I will maybe refine the piece a bit more when I polish it. My plan is to rough a much as I can while the idea is formulating in my head. I don’t want to get stuck on nit picking while I am working this series out.

Here is the drawing and first few splits. I get pretty aggressive from here deep wide fret cuts and working really fast. This was a really fun day for me.

This is really only an hour or 2 later you can see how much I removed. the distance between cuts is just under 2 inches in most cases. Lots of dust and stone shards.

Same column on its side ready for me to make the cuts in the back. still lots of stone to cut off in this pic.

All slung up off the bench ready to be set up right so I can check proportion. At this point I hadn’t seen it standing up just rolled it around on the bench. Probably cut 200 lbs off of it .

Really liking the way this looks. Very masculine very strong with just a hint of gorilla!

This is where he sits. I have some more things I will do to it but I don’t think its going to go far from here. This is where I get really excited about carving like this . I love the textures the evidence of my tools the history of the stone. This sculpture has presence and a mass to it that I couldn’t describe in a drawing or words before I started. This is coming very close to my final idea.

Thanks for looking. Check my Twitter feed for daily updates. @thegorilladidit

6600 pounds of Basalt

For those that don’t know Basalt is one of the hardest igneous stones. Harder and more dense than Granite. If it cools slowly enough it has the most amazing way of forming columns.  This is the shape I will be working from. these columns range in diameter from 3 inches to 20 and in length from6 inches to 6 feet. It came on 2 palets and a 4×4 box. this si how it looked after unloading.

Mini colunms

These are the little ones from 3 to 6 inches in diameter. I think every one should have the joy that I felt when I saw all this stone. This is a lot of carving!!!

Lucky # 1

Gonna do this Man

Rubber boots and apron and a hammer of course.That one on the far right is gonna get  it first. But before I show you that I will show you some drawings I did as prelim.

Girl & Boy

Quick sketches just to capture a few of the more elusive ideas Ive got . So at this point I got kind of excited and went nuts just carving and having a really good time. I didn’t get too many progress pics of this first one so here is the earliest that I have.

2 hammers & a saw

So like I said  this is the earliest I have of this one. This is almost done at this point needs polishing and some small refinements. Needs the second arm which will be hanging from the hand that is out stretched. I removed about 120 lbs. This stone is fantastic!! Cuts easy breaks hard and polishes to a sexy black. some close ups for you.

All of the flats will be polished to a high gloss.

This is me Starting the hole in the hand.

A better pic of the upper body and arm as I core the hole.

In this one you can see the ribs and upper body before the holes were cored.

I am really looking for the textural differences in this work. I want the process to be evident. Also wanting to let the idea flow and not mess with it too much allowing for a fast loose  sort of style. Getting a  form thats just there . Some of the pieces will be more refined others like this one will be available for your mind  but almost more of a sketch.

This piece is cut from the mini columns. Its torso is a separate piece. Only about 2 ft tall.  I am cutting again tomorrow. Into the second piece. Maybe I won’t get so carried away and I will remember to take some progress shots.