Continuing my last post about stone carving the angel, my next step was to start creating the form of the figure. On bodies, I long ago discovered that I need to start with the hips and legs and then work the other parts of the body to fit those. Not everyone works in the same way. One of the perks about creating art is that you discover how YOUR brain works. You learn so much about your unique way of experiencing and discovering the world around you, how you take information in and how you express yourself.
Thus, I began to shape the pelvic butterfly a little and then the upper thighs of the angel. Only to find more problems in the stone when I found cut into some of that orange crumbly layer that will probably cause me more grief than elation on this piece. You may see this orange inclusion in the figure’s right thigh.
I had designed the legs to be of slightly different positions for more interesting shapes. Now, the only choice I had was to move that back thigh lower, below the problem area in the stone. That, of course, would affect all of the other relationships, especially the length of the lower part of the leg. However, I realized that since my angel was no longer a bas-relief, but instead 3-d, I could make up this shortening by angling that leg in a different way. This meant that I will need to change the position of the heel of the foot, but I think that I have enough stone to be able to do that.
More as the stone carving develops . . .
And for those who celebrate Easter, here are links to some of my previous postings about Pasqua in Florence, Italy:
- The blessing of the stone relic originating from the Crusades
- Then in Piazza della Republicca ... follow the relic, see it joined with the cart, flagwavers, and then a small parade to the Duomo for the show and explosion ... and the DOVE ! The Explosion of the Cart