Progress – Tools of the trade

Before I get down to business with a mallet and my chisels this is what I used on Abraham and Isaac: Shopbot CNC, Titebond II glue, my trusty Porter Cable drill and Irwin, Miro-Moose Hand Screw and Rockler pipe clamps.

The CNC is helpful in removing a lot of wood quickly with minimal involvement on my part. Would Michelangelo use such a device or is it cheating? I will write a blog post on that soon.

The glue is a water resistant wood glue that works great. These will never reside outside but better safe than sorry.

Three types of clamps with three purposes. The Irwin clamps are great for positioning the pieces being glued. The wood will slide a lot when initial clamp pressure is applied. The Irwin clamps are easy to use one handed and easy to adjust as needed. The pipe clamps work great for applying a ton of pressure on the glue joint. The hand screw clamps can apply a great deal of pressure too but they really shine in having a deep throat and being able to clamp at odd angles.

The Shopbot cnc roughing out the third layer of Abraham and Isaac.
Gluing up the first two layers of seven total
Gluing up third layer.

Progress – The search for wood

[catlist id=”18-19-1-20″]

This is what Abraham and Isaac look like at the start. Not very exciting or sexy but one of the most important parts of a project, selecting the wood. I need to go through up to 1000 board feet of wood to find the 70 to 100 board feet I need for each carving. The grain, color, density, width, thickness, moisture content; they are all important in the selecting wood that will carve well.  It is getting harder to find good mahogany for carving since Honduras restricted exportation a decade ago after a few bad eggs were harvesting trees that they shouldn’t have.

On the rack at the lumber store

Loaded up and ready for the trip to the studio

Abraham and Isaac in the rough.

 

Progress – Abraham and Isaac

[catlist id=”18-19-1-20″]The last piece to complete the Hebrew 11 series.  I have chosen the story of the sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22 to represent Abraham.  This story is an allegorical representation of the Passion of Christ.

I love the woodcut pictured below.  It is very intimate  but does not lend itself well to being created in a large relief carving.  The angels wings would be to wide and bulky for the space that the sculpture will live.  I have my ideas on how to keep the tension and intimacy of this woodcut but make the sculpture more compact.

WOMM – Up and running

After too many years in the cyber closet I have created a new website for my art work.  I am still fleshing it out but there is still some great pictures of the Hebrews 11 commission to view.

I will keep regular updates on the work in progress page of what I am working on.

Little will be off-limits on the Whats on My Mind blog; art history, life, techniques, art critiques, pop culture (from a baby boomers perspective) and anything that I find interesting.

Till next time let the chips fall where they may.