The Craxford Snelling Workshop

Due to RMT activity I wasn’t able to make it in today.

Raised Lettering, w. John Neilson For the more elaborate piece, we must think of two words, I will be carving ‘wedi blino’ (welsh for tired). John spoke in detail about how to make letters more dynamic (if they line up, where they lean, large exaggerations etc.). There were a few other things he mentioned but…

Raised lettering, w. John Neilson We started by drawing an ‘I’ shape directly on the stone to learn the technique of carving a raised letter. It’s far more important to get the correct angle (45 degrees) of the chisel when cutting the outer shape as this determines the depth. make sure to leave 1/2 a…

Drapery Carving I need to find the curves and keep the whole piece clean, look at the planes and get them resolved before trying too much detail. Want to keep the piece clean so I can see what I’m doing and where the folds go, especially in the dark slate. Fate of the Guilty I…

Drapery Carving I came straight from a friend’s to the workshop today, as it was the Marx oration so was feeling less than fresh. Anyway, I started in the cutting room on the air tools for my slate, definitely made the job easier. Got a lot wasted and worked on the edges and depths, less…

Käthe Kollwitz Transcription- Casting. My notes from the last week have been dismal, a very rough week for me personally and equally as busy. We started with a thin coat of the silicon (10-1 of silicon and fast acting catalyst) and pouring this on the clay from around a foot to prevent air bubbles. After…

Fate of the Guilty “Nemser worried that in treating their [endurance artists] as ‘materials or instruments’ & in taking a ‘clinical attitude towards pain’ body artists might come closer to treating their bodies as pure objects.’ – Lara Shalson But isn’t this what all art does? The worker becomes the most wretched commodity, and that’s…

Käthe Kollwitz Transcription No silicon so couldn’t start casting yet, spent an arm and a leg on casting materials (should be enough to do the entire FotG project).  Worked on finishing touches, added clouds, went through a few decisions but ended with something I’m happy with, still an openness to it but doesn’t distract…

Käthe Kollwitz Transcription A lot better today. Working at a decent speed again, good night sleep tends to help. Ghislain said to ‘feel the bone structure through the flesh and clothes.’ So I went over everything and eventuated the joints to make them seem more boney. Tom then said to put eyes in some of…

Käthe Kollwitz Transcription Burnt out from the weekend today so very slow, spent the day working on the child’s head and a couple other faces. Not much achieved and fairly unhappy with progress today.