Wedding garden stone

A garden stone I was commissioned to do as a wedding gift. It's about 12" x 9", and weighed around 19 lbs.

I haven't been getting a lot of art done, as I'm working full time during the summer, while juggling the whale watching business and family. Stay tuned for more frequent postings in the fall!

finally a rock for myself!

I've been busy the past few weeks putting in the vegetable garden and doing yardwork, and things are looking so great, that I made this for myself. I can always do more ;)

Two new stones

Two stones I've been working to finish for the MacDonald Museum show.

finished stones

Here's how these two stones turned out, before they went to live for a while at Bluefin Pottery. I gave them both a satin-gloss finish by treating them with beeswax. This makes them appear wet and brings out all the lovely colours. (And they smell good too!)

Amanda's rock

I finished this garden rock today for my sister. I freehanded for the first time, which was fun, since the celtic stuff is planned so meticulously. The rock has a bloom for each of her three children, and a bud for the little one on his way. This stone is my largest yet: about 18"x12".

work in progress: another stone!

My new rotary bits finally arrived, so I am working to finish this stone and the one from my previous post. Please excuse the bad photo - I'll try to get a better one up.

work in progress: green square knot stone

Newest stone in progress

I began this yesterday- spent just over an hour carving on it last night. This stone is carving nicely, and I can't wait to get more done.

Aberlemno Stone Spiral rock carving - finished

Taa daa! After about 1 1/2 hrs last night, she's done. The outside circle is 7.5 cm in diameter, I've photographed the stone with my chequebook to give a better idea of the size. It was challenging to work with such small lines so close together, but I'm very happy with the results. I think I'll have to go the the beach today for more art supplies. ;)

spiral stone work-in-progress

I'm working on my second stone, and thought I'd post work in progress images to document how I'm doing this.

The spiral design I'm using for this one comes from the famous Aberlemno stone cross. I've used the pattern in paintings before, and I'm excited to be rendering it in the medium it was meant for.

Here is a photo of my set up:

Following my crude little green numbers, I'll walk you through. #1 is the original line drawing. What you can't see is that the back of the paper is covered in a layer of red pastel dust. Previous to this photo being taken, I taped the pasteled pattern to the stone, and traced the lines. When I lifted the paper, the rock looked as shown at #2. You can (kind of) see the red lines on the stone. Next step is to use a pigment pen to trace the lines on the stone, so then I can wipe off the red dust. #3 are my mask and goggles - sexy I know, but I don't want stone dust in my lungs or contacts. #4 is my trusty dremel tool, along with #5, my diamond bits. And #6 is the toothbrush I use to keep the rock dust/water gunk off the stone so I can see what I'm doing.

And here we are after about an hour of work with the dremel. Getting there, but still at least another hour on this one. This was a challenge, as I didn't know if I could work this small... if your monitor is set like mine (800 x 600), then this photo is about life size. The spiral design is about 8 cm across.

I'll post again when I finish.

my first stone carving!

Here it is! I am so excited about this, and can't wait to do more. The knot is around 6cm x 6cm, and took about 4 hours to complete.

stone carving

My first foray into stone carving. I'm doing it the easy way, with a Dremel. I'm actually surprised by how easy it is... the tool cuts the stone like it's sinking into warm butter. It's very fun, and kind of magical to see hard stone yield to me. I'll post this again as soon as I finish it.