profile carving

[<artisti@zzzzzzzzzzzz>]

Hello everyone,

I have been interested in how to carve for many years. I often ask to watch people carve in order to see how they do it.  What I have discovered is that most people carve looking at the front of their chisel sneding a spray of chips into the face and therefore require some form of safty glasses.  This can not have been how centuries of carvers worked or many sculptors would have become blind beofre the invention of protective eye wear. I believe that at one time all carvers used another method in which the sculptor only carved the profile edge of the block in front of him or her. This was done fro several reasons.

The first was because when one carves the profile edge the eye is looking at the back of the chisel and the chip that comes off flies away from the eye.

Second the stone wants to break along a plane at the point of impact with the chisel. This removes large amounts of stone easily with no danger of taking off too much

Thirdly the blow to the sculpture is a glancing blow that does the least amount of damage to the stone

Forthly It is the surest way of seeing exactly what you are removing. I often use the example of taking a bite out of an apple.  If looking directly at the bite you can not see the depth but when turned to the profile, the depth becomes obvious.

My great teacher explained it to me this way:

When drawing the nature of the pencil is to make a line.  So one needs to think about painting shapes of light and dark when you draw.

When painting the nature of the brush is to make shapes.  So one needs to think sculpture and volume to lay the stroke of the brush on the plane of the object you are painting.

When sculpting the nature of sculpture is 3D. So one needs to think of line. One profile line at a time.

This is over simplified but hopefully it communicates the idea.

I carve because I love to carve.  I don't want a machine to do the fun part. For me the process is perhaps more important than the final outcome. I am often not happy with the end results or I am just really hard on myself. But I have a lot of fun creating. Profile carving has changed my life. When I am in trouble it is because I have lost a profile. I am constantly amazed how easily my problems are solved when I heed my own good advice.

Buono lavoro

Giovanni