a new beginning

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Thoughts on beginning stone carving in the round (After 10 years I'm still beginning)

Choose a hardness:

3 basic hardnesses:
Stones that carve with wood tools - like Soapstone and some Alabaster
Stones that use stone tools(steel) - Limestone, Marble, some found stones
Stones that carve with Tungsten Carbide tools - Granite, most river rocks

Really hard stones like granite demand heavy duty power tools or almost inhuman patience - I wouldn't start with hard stones

Stones that carve with wood tools - If you are attracted to carving beautiful colored stones, stones that have a nice finish, or small stone carvings this is a good place to start. Your local woodworkers supply shop will have almost everything you need.

Stones that use steel tools - These are the traditional statuary and building stones. I started with traditional, hand powered tools. 3 chisels, 1 hammer, faceshield, dustmask, sharpening stone, files and sandpaper will take you a long way.

Choose your detail:

Many people like to start with a stone that can take a sharp edge and a high polish - Marble and alabaster and are classic choices.
Limestone and soapstone generally have less detail. More detail means more time spent sanding, polishing, and refining the edges, and wishing you had power tools to speed up the process. Less detail means comparitively more time spent roughing out, and carving the form.

Choose beetween multi-color and single colored stones:

Often the more abstract pieces work better with multi-colored stones. With human forms and other complex forms the multicolored stones can be distracting and hide the form.

For your first carving, I would buy my stone rather than using a found stone.
1. Many stones found in the wild will have flaws that may be frustrating for a beginner.
2. It will be easier to get quality advice from this list if you know the type of stone you are working with.

The only 'permanent' choice here is the hardness of the stone as you will use a whole seperate set of tools for alabaster and granite.

My favorite pieces of advice:

(from Liebman's Direct Stone Sculpture) Start a direct carving by carving a hole through the center. This helps conquer timidity about 'carving away the wrong thing' and avoids 'blockiness' of the final product.

Make your first carving simple, then grow towards your bigger ideas.

Start with basic hand tools and acquire more tools as you need them.

Start with a medium sized stone. 60-80 lbs of raw stone, can easily reduce to 30-40 lbs after rough carving. I personally don't like carving stones under 30 lbs. Starting with a 1-ton block means a lot of hard work before you begin to see results. This is a matter of personal preference.

Protect yourself: Wear a good mask for 'dangerous' stones and machine powered carving. Wear a face shield(or goggles)

Follow your bliss

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