People have asked me show some of the carving process, which is lengthy and dusty.  At some point I hope to post video, until then here’s a few photos that show the stages of creating a piece I named Embrace.

Step 1 – Roughing Out

This piece of Bruno Carmello Alabaster weighed about 55 lbs at the start.  I knew I wanted to capture the love of a mother for her child using a sweeping motion of her arms embracing the infant. In figurative carving it is important to find the heads early on to base all other proportions off it.  I wanted the roundness to repeat as often as possible in all views.  Roughing out in alabaster is done primarily with tooth chisel as the point can be too aggressive. 

Step 2 – Rasping & Filing

Aiming for a more gentle sweeping embrace as I release more forms from the stone.  I tried to capture the bond between the figures that remains throughout life.  Time to get out the rasps and files for detail and final creation of negative space.   Alabaster is not meant to take detail like marble or some of the harder stones but I wanted to push this to accept the softness and fierce protectiveness of the interaction.  I find the file work especially gratifying especially when  I have my good Milani Files on hand!

Step 3 – Polishing

Once the rasping and filing are done it’s time to start the polishing process. I generally do it by hand, working from from heavier weight papers down to a fine, as you would suspect.

I started this after my Mother passed away years ago. I was not happy with it when nearly done for several reasons which I won’t get into here.  Time  and the newer files and diamond files have helped me get it to the right place.