Am I Michelangelo? No.

I had to do a creative project for my History of Creativity class at BYU (MFG 201, a pretty good class if you need to get some Civ GEs out of the way). It took me a while to decide what to do, but eventually I decided to try stone carving. The thing that tipped me over the edge was this photo (left), obviously by Araldo de Luca, in case you missed that fact. Check out that hair! Women haven't changed much in the last 2000 years, eh? This sculpture was most likely commissioned by a private Roman citizen. Anyway, I was amazed by this sculpture and I decided that I should give stone carving a shot.

After some research on the web I found what I would need to start my project (tools, stone) and that same research told me that I would have to shell out some $$$ if I really wanted to do it. After some hemming and hawing, for a couple months, I shelled out the $$$ and ordered some very basic, yet good quality, stone carving tools, made by Sculpture House, and 20lbs of soapstone.

My basic research for the project gave me a very general idea of the techniques involved in this art form, but once I got my stuff I did not research farther. I wanted this experience to be a marvelous journey of self discovery. And it was.

I started off quite ambitiously and just started hammering chunks of rock away. This picture (right) was taken within the first half hour of my commencement of this project. You can see that I've already done a great deal of damage, and started a rather intense cleaning nightmare in my room.

This actually allowed me to experiment with the effects of the five chisels that came with my tool kit, and by the time I knew what the strengths and weaknesses of each tool were, I had discovered how a face could be exposed from the stone.

I've heard, many times before, that sculptors free the sculpture from the stone, and from this experiment I kind of realize what they mean when they say that. And this meant that one of my unstated goals for was achieved; I wanted to approach this with the instincts of an artist, and I think I succeeded.

This picture here (right) is probably about at the halfway point. I found that the best chisel for basic shaping and cutting was a wide, toothed chisel, which is what leaves most of the lines on the carving. Later, I smoothed out this lines with my flat bladed chisels.

The farther I got into the project, however, the more I realized that I had no clue how to sculpt a human face. Instincts worked for the basic shaping, but the details were eluding me. What I needed was a model, preferably a girlfriend, who I could immortalize in stone. Since that option wasn't really an option , I did the best I could do as a substitute. I printed a bunch of faces off the Internet and tried to use them as references. In fact, these were the ones that I used:

Naturally, being a typical male, I gravitated towards insanely beautiful female faces, and I had visions in my mind of creating something equally grand. . . maybe after a couple years of experience as a stone carver.

This is what I ended with (below). Pretty much a lame face (see my reference pictures?). The problem that I encountered is that pictures don't do justice to the way the lines of the human face flow into each other. It certainly didn't help that none of the pictures that I used were of the same person (I could have chosen, say, Eva Green, but the problem is that it's difficult to find all the appropriate angles that I wanted of the same person).

Another problem that I had, was the tools that I had were not adequate to the task of finishing and detailing the sculpture. Basically I needed a set of files, rasps, and rifflers as well, to establish the final details like lips and eyes.

Still, I don't think my project turned out badly at all. I rather enjoyed the process, and I'll probably end up making it a hobby in the future.