Finessing and finishing

 Between periods of bad weather I managed to get out into the Wee Workshop, aka garden shed, to grind and sand four of my cupped stones. One was given away a couple of days ago; and the rest will head back to our Maleny home. 

Whilst I have cupped mainly roundish stones I wanted to have a go at a square piece of stone I have had in the yard for a few years. I love the layers in the stone. As you can see from the opening and following photo the cupping process has highlighted the beauty of the layers.

The four finished stones.

The three that will head home with us.

And the one that was gifted - oiled with vegetable oil so that it brought out the dark colour and can be used for salt etc once the surplus oil has been polished off.

Stone work has now been finished for this trip.

Of stones & sculpture

 

We are so fortunate to be able to walk to the stone shore of the cove to enjoy the stones and collect a few for art - see cut stones above. 

During the week I got to take such a walk on a blue sky day and enjoy the shore at low tide; and immerse myself in stones - see below.

I chose those stones that will have metal inlaid into them and cut the grooves into them with the diamond blade in my angle grinder - see following photos.

Today I started the process of bending and cutting 1.5mm metal wire-rod (silver and brass) and fitting it into the grooves in preparation for glueing.

On Saturday I had a young 8 year old lad from the village join me in the workshop aka garden shed to assemble a sculpture he wanted two make for the garden at his family's place. He chose the bits of timber and rust from our stash; and he decided the layout himself. Together we assembled the piece. See photo of the piece below - completed on the work bench.

He had specifically chosen a heavy metal bracket that could hold the piece on another heavy block of timber so that the work would sit at an angle and could be moved around the garden - See photo below of the completed piece open the gravel outside the workshop.

The piece was delivered yesterday afternoon and installed in a spot in the home garden he had chosen. What a grand thing to start creating art at such a young age.

The beauty of silver and stone

 

I have made as many stones with inlaid solid silver that I can on this trip. All stones except the cross for Graham are in the opening photo. Following are some process photos including shiny stones where I have added a coat of oil to bring out the colour. I wipe the excess oil off and the stone tends to retain the deepened colour.

The two pairs of stones following are going to new homes.

The four below will go into our studio gallery shop when we reach our Maleny home.

I am pleased with what I have achieved.

Cupped and other carved stones

 

Over the last week I have completed three projects: some cupped stones for friends; a cupped stone for installation at our front door; and replacing the Armadale stone cottage in the Stone Cottages artwork that was exhibited in my Betrayal and Loss exhibition SNM 2023.

Cup carvings in stones is an ancient form of decoration-art and was used by the Picts in the Highlands. Nobody really knows the meaning or purpose of creating the cups; but to me it is a conscious act by folk many years ago. Carving these stones seems to me to be a way of making a connection with artisans of the past.

Three of the four finished stones for friends I carved cup marks into can be seen in the opening photo; and the original stones and the fourth stone can be seen below.

During earlier visits I had carved two stones for our front door wee stone installation - I managed to carve a third stone (pink) to make up a trio - see photo below.

The original Armadale Cove stone cottage that was part of the Stone Cottages artwork made its way to our deck in Maleny. I wanted to recreate the set by carving another cottage out of an Armadale Cove stone. As you can see below this has been done; and the installation of 5 is set in a gravelled corner out the back of the cottage. The cottage photo was taken in the rough before finessing it.

I am pleased to say I have achieved my stone carving goals for this trip.

Stone with inlaid solid silver

 

When we did a workshop last year with Lindsey Gallacher I experiment with inlaying solid silver rod into a cove stone I had cut a groove into with a diamond blade. When Fiona and I were talking about art that we might do whilst we are over here this time she suggested that I might do some more inlay work. 

I ordered a .5m length of 2mm .925 solid silver rod; and we collected suitable stones from the cove - see photos below.

Over the weekend I managed to finish one of the stones (see opening photo); and worked on four others including an inlaid cross for Graham (see process photos below). The stones were cut free hand with a 1.5mm diamond blade in my side grinder. This requires steady hands and good safety goggles, mask and gloves.

The grooves are finessed with a diamond file; the silver rod is glued into the groove when cut, shaped etc; the whole thing is given a polishing sand; and finally polished with light coat of mineral oil.

Over the next couple of weeks I hope to finish about 7 stones in all.

Art supplies???

 

Some people buy a stash of paper when they are overseas; or maybe some special ink for their art practice. 

Strangely enough Fiona and I require stone and slate for future creations; so our bags were slightly heavier on the way home with the clean slate (above) and washed stones you can see in this blog post.

We also wanted to bring a couple of the carved cottages home as well - see below. 

Given that we arrived back to our Maleny home very late last night there was no art done today - lots of sorting and washing; but I don't think either of those count as creative pursuits!!!!

I'm sure some of the stone will turn up in our work over the coming months.

Finished finessing cottages

 

I spent another 4 hours today finessing the stone cottages today. This included: tidying up the shapes; smoothing the various planes of the cottage forms; grinding away excess stone; and creating a chipped textured area around each cottage. The photo above shows me using a diamond grinder to take excess stone off. I was working around the back of the shed out of the direct wind. I like the art nature of the sieve on the wall!!!!

I chose the five cottages in the photo below for finessing and for the installation that will go into the exhibition; and you can see I bagged the larger offcuts of each as these will become part of the installation.

A close up of the grinding process - done outside - fine day today - all the safety gear on. I got Fiona to take the photos - thanks F.

In the shed I then used stone carving chisels to create the textured areas. As you can see from the photo below the stones are extremely hard and the chisels suffered. A fair bit of work will be required to restore the chisels.

I didn't know until later but Fiona took a few photos of me chiseling through a very dirty workshop window.

Below are the finished five including a couple of individual cottage photos.

As you can see from the photo below I have created a couple of spares as I was not confident about the stone for Sherray and Sleiteil.

I am pleased with the outcome; and given the hardness of the stones I am also pleased this work is complete.