The Portfolio of Tobias Luttmer
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