a few art comments

["George Graham" <georgergraham@zzzzzzzzzzz>]

Thank you for the kind comments. I responded to your personal email address
but it didn't go through.
As you are very interested in dancers, and draw them regularly, you have a
great foundation of knowledge in place that will help you carve realistic
figures. I found that traditional rules about realistic figurative carving
worked best. I have no formal training, just try to bring together what's in
my minds eye with the form that the stone has in it. Because stone carving
is slow, its easy to stay out of trouble .
First rule for me, is to do some drawings that are meant for the stone you
are going to work on.
Then when carving, bring out the main, and largest body forms first. Get
arms , legs, head and torso in place and working together before you get
into real detail work. Once the proportions feel right to you, and you can
trust your instincts to tell you that, all the rest will fall into place.
When in doubt, do some more work with live dancers!
Finally, go ahead and start as soon as possible. Throw the word perfection
out, there is no such thing.  Go ahead and make your mistakes, so you can
learn from them. The quicker the better. I agree completely with Bill and
the others who say , charge ahead. If you are not doing an exact duplicate
commission, then you are free to explore and learn with no fear of mistakes!
A new, and enthusiastic stone carver always brings new energy to the group,
so don't hesitate to post you questions and thoughts ( pictures are always
good) so we can all enjoy the process.
Keep your chisels sharp,
George Graham
http://www.grahamsculpturestudio.com