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mudimba — Gaston
Published: 2011-10-13 04:52:05 +0000 UTC; Views: 1821; Favourites: 12; Downloads: 22
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Description
My latest stone sculpture. It depicts a rock climber's hand holding onto a rock. The piece is made from a single piece of Utah Alabaster; the hand is a different color because it has been polished. It is about 1/3 bigger than life sized.Related content
Comments: 16
So first off, it's great.
I like the hand being all smoothed out. It looks like skin against the rough unpolished stone.
The hand looks natural and it really looks like it's crimping down. Is this based on a particular move on a certain route? I like how you choose the gaston vs a more basic climbing hand position.
One critique would have to do with the stone. The hand is so realistic, but the rock seems not as well thought out. I'd like to see it more granite like Or maybe you could take another piece of similar sized rock and put it right to the left of this one and make it look like a crack. But that might be getting too representational.
All in all, I love it and I'm hesitant to say anything negative, but it's a critique so it's expected. It's giving me some inspiration to sculpt as well.
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Actually I stand corrected. Minutes after I posted my last comment I discovered an artist's gallery that does beautiful figurative work in granite!
~gecko-online
It would be really interesting to know how he does it!
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Thanks a lot Kevin! Glad you like it, and the critique is really helpful.
It is possible to carve granite, but *really* difficult. I don't think that anybody would be crazy enough to carve a figurative piece in granite (most work you see in granite is abstract and fairly basic shapes). It takes climbers about half an hour to drill a two inch by quarter inch hole, so you can imagine how difficult it would be to shape a rock with chisels. Basically you have to blast the rock with a torch while you are hitting it with a bushing hammer to get little flakes to come off. Of all the rock that exists in the world, there are only a handful of types that are carveable with hand tools.
The move does not come from a particular route, but is just one that I think often feels good when it shows up. I also wanted something that would naturally make a strong diagonal line from the front, rather than one where the natural wrist direction would be to have the arm coming straight down.
I definitely think that you should give stone carving a go. Your bronze work is really good, so I think that it would be fun for you to try stone. Let me know if you need a link to a good place to get a handful of tools.
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Actually... I was referring to carving your stone to look like granite. The move you chose makes it not cliche. It's more unique and draws you in more.
I like real granite because of those very properties that make it difficult to sculpt with. It makes the rivers in Tuolumne and the falls and everything so beautiful and grand. Since even water has trouble carving pathways through that stone. And water can do almost anything.
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Oh, you mean in the rough cut area? Yes, ironically sculpting rock to look like rock is extremely difficult (just like drawing rocks well is very difficult). I took the easy way out by applying a texture that was not necessarily granite-like, and justified it by saying it looked a bit like a schist conglomerate. 
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I like this statement:
" ironically sculpting rock to look like rock is extremely difficult"
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wonderful piece. I like the contrast between the polished hand and arm and the rought stone with the tool marks on the rock. stay well!
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Wow, that is incredible. All the detail at the wrist looks like a lot of thought went into it. How long did that take?
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Thanks
I worked on it for a couple hours per week for probably 4-5 months. The original shape came very quickly, but carving all the little folds, fingernails, veins, etc was really slow going.
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