In the week since the last post I have worked on the block just a little. Sometimes life gets in the way of the important things- like creating a sculpture- LOL
It has been very difficult to 'see' where everything fits on this piece. There are so many overlaps that it has proven impossible to carve off big hunks of wood- since I don't know what to leave and what to take away. Yet.
This is as far as I'd gotten after about 5 hours of mostly standing around and staring at the wood- making marks and then carving them away:
As you can see- not much progress has been made. I have made a few tentative stabs at locating where the limbs are, and carving a little to define them. Chicken!
So, today I got some moxie and really started to study the reference photos and the block of wood. I also read some in the Ian Norbury books on carving the figure. That is when I discovered that I had gone about this all wrong. Shootola. He recommends using just one reference picture for making the patterns. That way the positions of everything will line up after sawing out the block. I'm afraid I may not have things lined up properly- maybe that is why I am having so much trouble seeing where things start and stop.
These four diagonal views show where I got after 4 hours today. I've decided to just leave everything kinda fat for now. Next time I will be able to see more clearly where all the parts fit and overlap. I will also first need to make certain that I have the essential gesture correct. It would be very easy to make everything about this figure square to the front, but she is turned and twisted and I need to not lose that characteristic. The shoulders- very critical- hope I haven't remove too much wood already. If so- she will just be a much skinnier lady.
Right now she is looking like something carved by Ernst Barlach:
http://tiny.cc/ntE3Y
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