Matchbox Studio
(10/18/16)
Well, the studio has been a lot more active than the blog lately, with the election season and a self-bricked phone providing enough horror to put me off Halloween this year (not even doing a Sundown Lounge podcast)...
Anyway, I got this far last week through bypassing the cube and just letting a few chips fly...
The initial element blocks from the face of the stone...
The feel of this marble through the chisel is harder than alabaster and wonderstone but not much harder, and not as brittle as the chlorite I'm working on. Because it's my first marble, it's easier to resist the temptation to rush...
Since this will be an organic abstract piece, I start with the strongest features - curves, intersections and lots of negative space. I already have a working name for the piece, 'Resonance.' That oval marks the vertical top of a curving element...
The dominant element will be an arch that curls across the top and dives in and down...
The bare beginnings of what to do with the sides...
I wanna knock big holes in the sides, but a couple wrong hits could knock off a whole corner...
My studio process had to change a bit from school; after three hours of work in the cube and a ride to the park, I'd come back a couple times and lose three hours of my afternoon to a siesta, so for now I'll break studio time up into 15 - 30 min. chunks until I get this last stone blocked out and past 'hammer and chisel' to 'power tool' stage...
The dominant intersection through the arch...
The ends, like the sides, are still open, and this end floats. This piece may get to power tool stage sooner than later...
(10/23/16)
The past few days have seen the damn stone prove just as brittle as the clorite. Anyway, it's getting past the block shape...
This angle can still take a chisel, but even in roughing out the marble I can only go so far because it's not a big stone...
Here I'm carving down the element's side to then carve under and come up...
...Right between the element's opposide side and the floating element... that just popped off as I tapped around it. Curses aside, I still need a floater there...
Defining the bottom of the second floater...
Even making silly little baby taps couldn't save that delicate part on the end...
On this side, the point and toothed chisels have the element almost deep enough...
...And it's almost ready here. I broke off to watch Game 6 of the NLCS and witness the Cubs knock a huge monkey off its back. We'll see about that damn goat on Tuesday...