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Rock Art => Carvings and Sculptures => Topic started by: Asianfire on October 07, 2014, 07:08:05 AM
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Hi everyone, hope you all have a nice week ahead.
For me the holidays have started (its great to work at school) and will have at least 5 or 6 days home alone. yippie24 yippie24 So lots of time to indulge in some carvings.
Have several themes lined up, but before I cut into the disdero, I need some rather specific practice.
So, first up is a set of coral feathers.
(http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb340/kainzerkurt/carvings%202012/carving%202013/feather1_zps2385a587.jpg)
So far so good, but now comes the fun and frustrating part of the challenge. Rough cut it looks good (save needing some reshaping), but as soon as sanding starts the problem becomes obvious (pictures dry and wet).
(http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb340/kainzerkurt/carvings%202012/carving%202013/feather2_zpsbf7d3059.jpg)
By now I'm at 1500 grid paper, it got a nice overall shine even without actual polishing, yet all the texture, save the center-line has been sanded out, and even the center-line is hard to see because the coral has a texture that is to strong for soft lines.
Now the challenge will be redoing the texture just deep enough to survive sanding and polish and strong enough to be actually seen, yet soft enough to represent a feather.
Should be fun to experiment with directional sanding and polish........
OK, so after erasing all the artificial textures during sanding, I tried today again.
(http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb340/kainzerkurt/carvings%202012/carving%202013/secondtry_zpscbf09ce5.jpg)
After the re-cutting, I went straight to the 1200 grid paper and then used some silicon-paste on soft cloth-burrs. After that 50k diamond-paste on felt and some soft leather to finish up.
(http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb340/kainzerkurt/carvings%202012/carving%202013/f2_zps28ca9f83.jpg)
The valleys of the groves are not fully polished, but that seems to be the only way to get some visible contrast against the natural texture of the coral.
OK now its time to move on to the actual holiday-project.
I was planing to do it Jadeite, but the coral showed me that I need more practice in getting contrasts. So I decided to do two pieces at the same time, one in jade and one in a more translucent singular color that is closer to a project intended for next month (with Warrens Disdero).
So today I cut the canvas in preparation
(http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb340/kainzerkurt/carvings%202012/carving%202013/canvas_zpsa4a27782.jpg)
..... I did it my own way.
As mentioned earlier, I was told not to use a certain design for practice, plus the piece breaking apart on me, I was about to move on to something else. But then, I thought better of it.
(http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb340/kainzerkurt/carvings%202012/carving%202013/j1_zps366eadfd.jpg)
Removed all the marks, sat down, and just got cutting working from memory of the previous piece. But as you can see on the right, the overall shape is rather awkward.
So I redid that today and started sanding to 1200 grid paper
In the picture from the left, rough, 600 grid and 1200 grid paper
(http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb340/kainzerkurt/carvings%202012/carving%202013/jfsandingstages_zps7ca052f8.jpg)
Capturing the color is a pain in the neck, its pink under most light-conditions but at certain angles its purple on about 70% of the surface. To get the purple on the right; I had to use lowest ASA setting on my camera.
So tomorrow its back to 600 grid as I can see in the pictures, that I did not reach a few areas, and then hopefully on to complete it by tomorrow.
AND thats where its now
(http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb340/kainzerkurt/carvings%202012/carving%202013/jfangles_zps0b52eaf9.jpg)
The Indonesian Green Opal measures up to 45 x 13 mm (exactly two inches long) and comes in at 21ct.
(http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb340/kainzerkurt/carvings%202012/carving%202013/of1_zps36bb8f76.jpg)
In the second picture above, you can get an idea as to how I plan to have it hung. The pendant will be hung by utilizing a vertical hole drilled into the fortification.
Just in case it cant be seen later
(http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb340/kainzerkurt/carvings%202012/carving%202013/of2_zps35ea1285.jpg)
And as far as it is now
(http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb340/kainzerkurt/carvings%202012/carving%202013/of3_zpsa774e2f2.jpg)
Technically ready for hanging, but with what the pictures revealed, I think I better go back to sanding some more.
And the pink/purple Guatemalan Jadeite, 35 x 13 mm at 33.3 ct.
(http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb340/kainzerkurt/carvings%202012/carving%202013/jfangles_zps0b52eaf9.jpg)
(http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb340/kainzerkurt/carvings%202012/carving%202013/jfbest_zps9490e061.jpg)