London Olympics

With the Olympics taking place here in London at the moment, I thought this might be a suitable piece to show you, what with the success of the GB team and Bradley Wiggins winning the Tour de France. This is a commission of the Lotus bicycle that Chris Boardman used to win Gold at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

 I thought when I started the carving that it wouldn't be too difficult as there weren't too many elements to it but I hadn't carved anything so delicate before and didn't realise that the delicacy was to be the overriding consideration in making the piece. Caved from a single piece of Pear wood and inlaid with Maple, 31cm in length.

I'll post photos shortly, describing all the stages of the carving from a block through to the end.

Carl Fogarty

This is a carving of Carl Fogarty, in Lime, the companion piece of the Aaron Slight carving. Carl, for those viewers among you not familiar with him,is a legend of World Superbike racing, winning 4 World Superbike Championships as well as 3 other world championships and also held the Isle of Man outright lap record for years. I think this commission was due in no small part as a celebration of Carl riding for the team.

 Here they are, together.

You can see the difference in body positioning, as I've written about on a previous post. You may also notice the different shaped brake levers on the handle bars of the two bikes. No much of a difference admittedly but the team would notice these things (Aaron had mangled his little fingers in a crash years before so used a shorter lever so his little fingers wouldn't get snagged on it). When I'm carving identical bikes, these little details do help the sense of achievement and completion when they're handed over.

One detail I was particularly proud of was a shark with spiky teeth, wearing sunglasses,veneered onto the back of Carl's crash helmet. Difficult to see clearly in this photo, but the shark is only about 6-7mm high.

I will post some of the early stages of the Carl Fogarty carving soon.

Leopard desk

Just a quick post. This is one of the accompanying pieces to the Lion bed. The desk isn't finished in these pictures. It was changed after this so that the leopards were painted and carved on the inside as well. The surface depth of the desktop was increased by around 40cm and then the drawers had the eyes and nose of a leopard carved and painted on them quite large so that it looked like a leopard was looking through a letterbox at you. Only a thin slice of the face was portrayed. I don't, unfortunately, have photos of the finished desk.

The desk lived in London initially but I believe it may have ended up in Colorado along with the Lion bed. Carved in Lime.

In the background is another piece, the chest of drawers, also part of the set. I didn't get to decide how it was illustrated or finished and felt it didn't match the rest of the furniture. It has Savannah scenes carved on the front and sides. I think it needed colour or greater depth to work alongside the bed and desk (as well as shelves with golden eagles at each end and a bedside cabinet with meercats on the front). Not one of my favourite pieces.

More early works

Here are a couple more of my early pieces. The bowl was a commission. It was the first time I'd used veneers, to add a bit of interest to the surface. I'd recently been to Barcelona at the time and was inspired by Gaudi's mosaics.

The grooves around the edge were determined by following the grain of the wood. The veneers followed the grooves. This can be seen more clearly underneath.

The bowl was carved in lime wood and inlaid with various veneers, finished in walnut oil. Approximately 50cm in length.

   The backgammon board followed soon after as I'd wanted to explore veneering some more. There is a much clearer influence from Gaudi in this piece, the central divide having been taken from his chimney designs, the edges were influenced by his balconies and the mosaics again informed the way the veneers were applied.

The board was carved from a piece of Sycamore with a variety of veneers, most notably the yew inlaid in the playing surface.

 It's approximately 55cm in length and finished in Danish oil. It went to Germany. There is also a little curvy box to keep the counters and dice in. I'll post pictures of it soon.

Early days of carving

I first began carving after mentioning to someone that I'd studied sculptor and photography at art college. They were after a series of carvings so I said I would have a go at them. I bought a book on woodcarving,got hold of the chisels the book recommended and got started. The first carvings I did were relief carvings, wall mounted work. Here are some of my first pieces. The dove and the St George were part of that first series, based on 12 words which it was left up to me to interpret.They were among the last of that series and I'd gained some experience of carving by the time I came to do these two.

St. George and the Dragon, from a painting in Gondar, Ethiopia. Carved in Lime wood, approximately 50 cm in height and painted in acrylics.

Dove, carved in Lime wood, approximately 50 cm wide, painted in oils.

King David, taken from a detail of an Ethiopian painting, carved in Lime wood, approximately 10 cm high, painted in acrylics. This went first to the foothills of Kilimanjaro. I think it's in Addis Ababa now.

Taken from paintings on the ceiling of a church in Gondar,Ethiopia. Carved in Lime wood, approximately 10 cm high, painted in acrylics. Now in West Virginia. The Byzantine influence is clear in some of these pieces but with a sweet twist with the Ethiopian style.

More angels from the ceiling of Debre Birhan Selassie Church in Gondar Ethiopia. Carved in Lime wood, approximately 10 cm high,painted in acrylics. These went to a gallery in Amsterdam. From there, who knows...

This wall carving was a commission for a lady who, after many years and nearly giving up hope, finally had the child she so wanted. Her daughter was called Grace for that reason. I carved this Sycamore leaf in Sycamore wood as it suited the colour of an autumn leaf, as she only had her daughter  in the autumn of her fertile years. Now in Dorset, I think.  Lettering painted with gold metallic paint. Approximately 35-40 cm wide.

St Mark, taken from an Ethiopian painting, carved in Lime wood, painted in acrylics. Approximately 30 cm high. Now in Dulwich, south London.

More early work to follow..........

Aaron Slight, starting from the block....

This is Aaron Slight on a Honda RC45, commissioned by the Castrol Honda World Superbike Team. Carved in lime wood.
Here is a record of the progress from a block of lime wood through to the finished piece.

Starting with a technical drawing of the bike, as I've mentioned before, I trim the profile closely, leaving a couple of millimetres spare to allow for tool damage and changes but close enough to that should I loose the drawing on the side, I won't be too far away from working out where I am.
   It is a representation of a specific bike so there is no room for error. All the elements have to fit together in order for it to be a success. As it is for the team, all the mechanics know the bike inside out and would spot mistakes immediately. No pressure then!

Where there is room for interpretation is with the rider and his position on the bike. Again, though, each rider has a particular style which is easily identifiable. Aaron, in this instance, crouches forward over his bike through turns, leading with his shoulder (very similar to GP legend Mike Doohan), putting weight over the front of the bike to help it turn. You'll be able to compare it to the companion carving of Carl Fogarty on his bike. You'll see he has a more upright style. Pictures soon.

The bike has to be carved first to get the thicknesses and component positions right. It would be disastrous to decide the position of his feet or his backside only to later on find them hovering in space. So as much of the bike is carved as I can get to before I start on the figure, but as much of the waste wood around the figure must be removed to gain access to as much of the bike as possible. It's a delicate balance between making progress and jumping the gun.

Bit by bit, all the waste wood is removed and the sculpture starts to work. The movable clamp helps to get the riders position in the right place, his helmet angle in relation to the lean able of the bike.Once the finer details of the bike have been picked out, the hands and feet can be located accurately to the handlebars and foot pegs and the arms and legs can be better defined as their position becomes more apparent.It's too easy at this stage to decide too early where the limbs are and how large they are. 

  This carving was completed long before I started using clay models to plan carvings. This is something I've only just got into doing as my work gets more ambitious or complicated and the time spent on the clay model would justify the extra time involved in the total time for a piece.

Eventually, the carving work is complete and the veneering work begins. Put simply, I dig out holes in the carving and put different colour veneers in. Unfortunately, I don't have photos of this for this carving. 

So, to the finished work. Here is how the carving turned out, veneered, sealed with danish oil and mounted on a mahogany base.

Aaron Slight on the Castrol Honda RC45 carved in Lime wood

This carving and the accompanying carving of Carl Fogarty are on display at Honda UK's race headquarters in Louth, Lincolnshire.

I'll show the carving of Carl Fogarty and some of the preparatory work soon.

The Lion sleeps every night.

Now, some furniture. The Lion bed. Carved in limewood with various wood stains.

Thought you might like a change from bike stuff. I'm rather proud of this and have been itching to get it on the blog. Around 8ft (2.5m) long and 5ft (1.5m) wide, weighing about 1/3 of a ton! Commissioned for a little boy of about 4 who, when standing next to it, only came up to the lion's forehead.

There are no sharp edges so it can be climbed all over without getting hurt or breaking bits off. I didn't go for a cartoon-style lion so he could grow up with it and not be embarrassed by it as he got older.Apparently he had constant streams of friends over to show it off. Well, if you've got it...... As you can see, there are hidden drawers which are opened by grabbing the tail.

There are other pieces that go with this, a chest of drawers, desk, shelves and a bedside cupboard, some of which I have no photos of. A shame as the bedside table had meercats on the front and you had to pull on one of them's nose to open the drawer. I'll show more photos of the bed and some of the other pieces soon.
This photo below will give you a sense of scale.