Jo Burton Sculptor and teacher of woodcarving
Exhibiting at Castle Park Arts Centre, Frodsham, WA6 6SE : 8.11.24 – 21.12.24
So after a nights sleep I have modified the maquette, I think it is a bit better now. The left hand side seems to lead into the wave and there is a greater sense of balance as the piece starts, builds up and breaks over the top.
So I’ll sleep on it and then start carving if I am still happy.
I have been thinking about the forms I want to use in this wave sculpture for a while now. I really like the sea and the work of Barbara Hepworth.
I often develop my initial ideas in plastercine. It allows me to keep developing ideas as I go along, even once carving has started. This is a scale model of what I am going to carve, about half the final size. The Mobius strip is fine and I like the rolling nature of the wave form. I am less sure about the left hand side (it reminds me of a slug on this model), to I may play around with that over the next day or two. It is important to get this right as it will affect the initial cutting of the outline of the shape in wood and once this is done I will be committed to a certain shape.
I like the Mobius strip as a form, its sense of flow, the way it creates light and shade within a sculpture and the symbolism relating to love and infinity. Creating a wave from the edge if the strip works well and gives a sense of energy and the power of the sea. I nice combination of ideas.
So now its time to get serious. Thinking about what to carve is a combination of the ideas I have in my head that have been mulling around and developing for a while. Today the one which is surfacing is a development of a wave form combined with a Mobius strip. This type of form enhances the wood with lovely areas of light and shade and a sense of swirling movement. I am thinking about whether to carve it in lime and paint some of the faces to create contrast, or to do it in spalted wood and let the grain come through.
I will have a look at some of the pieces of wood from my wood store!!
Then I can start to develop my initial concept in a more real way………
My workbench is back in my workshop and my chisels are sharpened ready for a new year of carving. I am so excited. I always take a break over Christmas and New Year and come back with loads of new ideas for things to carve. The next few posts will be short and look at the process of carving from start to finish.
Carving really helped me during lockdown. Suddenly I went from a busy schedule of carving, jewellery making and family life to all the restrictions of the covid lockdowns. In March 2020 I got back from an extended holiday feeling as though I made it back to the UK by the skin of my teeth. The coronavirus pandemic was causing increasing concern around the world. I got home, bought in a big food shop, bought a turbo trainer for my bike, went to the last pre covid meeting of professional woodcarvers at Michael Painters studio. We chatted about what was to come and how uncertain everything felt.
I tried to buy kiln dried lime from two of my normal suppliers but they were having problems with their supplies, but after a short delay I was able to procure the much needed wood.
By 23 March 2020 the first covid lockdown started! Aprils weather was superb, sunny and warm, just a fabulous spring. Events were all cancelled, shops were closed. There was no Wirral Open Studio Tour or Liverpool Summer Art Market. So I filled my time with my allotment, exercise and wood carving.
During the first lockdown I had carvings to finish and new ones to begin. I was half way through the carving of Female torso which I had been working on at Michael Painter’s studio. I had made a maquette out of plastercine, and so could complete the piece from it.
I was also half way through an Elven face which I had been working on at the professionals group. The aim was to free up my carving style and enjoy carving a humanoid face without being a slave to trying to obtain a perfect human face. My plastercine maquette was useful to help me obtain the correct proportions, depth to the features and anatomically correct details such as eyelids, lips and facial musculature. I am always working to improve gaining facial expression as I want it. The carved piece is as yet incomplete.
The time came and went for Wirral Open Studio Tour and I submitted some pieces for their on line exhibition. During the early weeks of lockdown I had been experimenting with the idea of making some more functional pieces, and had made a number of bowls inspired by natural forms.
The sun continued to shine and I continued to carve a small acorn pendant that a friend had asked me to do and a smaller version of my Eagle’s Head for another friend. Both are sill packed away in storage boxes awaiting the time that I can see my friends again.
As the summer progressed I returned to a piece that I had started over a year earlier – the head of a staffie. I had completed the obligatory plastercine maquette. I started to carve the staff in a piece of hawthorn with a beautiful grain, but such a hard wood. Never again!!
Whilst the weather held I continued with a series of semi human faces which I had been doing just to entertain myself and did a new “Tree Spirit” face.
As the summer drew in I left carving out in the garden to return to my studio.I completed male and female torsos in deep relief carvings to consolidate my proficiency in carving the human body. Doing carvings of the male and female forms together made me concentrate not he differences between anatomies and the differences in proportions, musculature and form. I used photographs of dancers as source material because they are well proportioned and the musculature is clear.
As we moved into the second lockdown I was asked to make three “Spiral on a Stone Plinth” for a friend who really likes the symbolism of the spiral representing our journey through life and our personal growth. The symbolism seemed poignant in these covid times, they were to be gifts for people who had seen much during the pandemic.
It made me think about doing some wood carving in response to the pandemic and this led to a “Tree of Life” carving and a Mobius Strip carving called “Eternal Love”. I was thinking about our need for strength, resilience, and new beginnings.
More recently I have returned to a recurrent theme of the female figure and have carved a female torso in the round, a younger woman than the first one. Again `I started with a plastercine maquette and created a slimmer form and started to play with the form, cutting away and changing the shape of part of the limbs.
Over the last year or two I have been improving my skills with regards to carving faces, and so I challenged myself to carve a portrait of the character Gollum from Lord of the Rings. As always I started with a plastercine maquette and spent a few days correcting depth of the eye sockets, the shape and size of the eyes, the cheeks and the expression created by the shape of the mouth, facial muscles and eyes. Once this was complete I started to carve a block of lime, gradually creating the nose by dropping back the cheeks, forming the eye sockets and then forming the mouth and chin. My work always goes through various stages. Initially I block out the overall form, and then start to form the features and think “how will this ever look like Gollum?”, then I re-carve the cheeks and jaw line and think “this is rubbish!” Further adjustments are made and the nose shape established, “maybe it looks a bit like Gollum.” Then I worked on the bulging eyes expressing fear and excitement and finalised the nose shape, “Um, getting closer.” Next the mouth was roughed in, wide and grinning uncertainly, “can I capture this expression?” Still a way to go!!
I have just been asked to carve another heart bowl, the third lockdown looks as though it will come to an end soon. Perhaps the end is insight and this will close the circle on what has been the strangest year I have ever known. How would I have ever survived it without carving to occupy my hands and to keep my mind busy.
This blog follows on from my earlier blog about researching ideas for this carving. This is not a technical guide to carving a lioness head, but illustrates the processes used in carving, finishing and mounting a woodcarving.
I developed my ideas by drawing and modelling in plastercine, after which I thought about the wood for carving. For this project I had a lovely piece of hawthorn cut from a tree as it was felled. It had been seasoning in my shed in a black bin bag for a couple of years. It was not fully seasoned, but with care it could be carved. It has a lovely grain and the right proportions for the piece, but is very hard wood for carving. I decided to do the piece in lime. If it goes well I may do a larger version in the hawthorn at a later date.
The lime is about 220x150x150mm. It has an even grain and is much softer and easier to carve. I started by marking the midline that will indicate the middle of the nose, head and neck onto the block. This is always marked and remarked onto a piece as I work to help to ensure symmetry.
The outline of the head was drawn onto the block from the side showing the neck, the slope of the head, nose and the positions of the nose and mouth. As the plastercine model was nearly the same size as the lime block the drawing could be done without scaling.
The lioness head was then roughly shaped creating the line of the top of the head, nose and neck, being careful not to remove too much wood so that the ears could be formed later.
Then the sides of the head were roughed out, the widest points are the ears, so again wood was left here. The nose is narrower than the main part of the head, where the widest area is the just behind the jaw, where the jaw strength comes from the large bone and muscle structure. The head narrows to the mouth and nose. The neck was then shaped and rounded under the ears so that the ears stood out.
The ears were then roughly shaped, on a lion they are rounded like a teddy bear. I chose to carve them partly flattened back to help to create expression. The sides of the nose were then carved.
The eyes of a predator are always on the front of the face as the have binocular vision. They are positioned so that the lioness can see down either side of the nose and give a clear field of vision. The eye positions were carved so that the eye brows appear and are symmetrical on each side of the head. At this stage I looked at the piece from close ups, from a distance, and from a variety of positions to ensure symmetry.
From the brow the head slopes back between the ears to the neck, and from the brows the face drops away infant of each ear. The eyes have a very large socket in lions. the eyeball within the socket can now be carved, Eye lids and details can be added later.
The nose and muzzle was then formed. Then time to get brave and take a saw to remove the wood from the open mouth, whist leaving wood for the large canines and teeth. This was achieved with a combination of sawing and carving. Wood for the teeth was left with lots of extra bulk to protect them from breakage.
I then took a couple of days out to look at the piece and check the eye position, symmetry. I added details to the eyes, and created the muscles in the cheeks joining different areas of the face and increasing structural integrity.
The surface was smoothed using chisels and scrapers, so that I could start to see the impact of the forms on light and shade. Fine adjustments are then easier to make. The whisker ridges were then carved and the curvature of the nose shaped, and nostrils created. The teeth and inside of the mouth were then refined.
The lower canines fit into the gap between the upper canines and upper incisors. The lower canines are closer together and smaller than the upper canines. My study of the lion skulls really helped me to understand how all of this fits together.
I then started to hollow out the neck and the inside of the head so that the hollow area joins with the back of the mouth. Enough wood has to be left in the skull to support the pole that the lioness head will be mounted on. I then hollowed out the area behind the eyes and pierced the eyes through removing most of the iris and leaving the pupil attached by a bit of wood to the top of the eye.
The final smoothing proceed was done using chisels and scrapers both inside and outside the piece, smoothing until a great finish is achieved. A tool finish can be used, but I felt a smooth finish was more cat like.
The lioness was finished with two coats of Danish oil and two coats of wax, buffed up to a satin sheen. It was mounted on a plinth made of American black walnut using a piece of 22mm Dowling also finished with Danish oil and wax.
One of my favourite pieces is my Eagles Head which captures a wild moment in the angle of the head and the savagery of the beak. It is a contemporary piece which has been hollowed out from within. This enhances the impact of light and shade, especially through the pierced eyes.
Now I want to use these ideas when carving the head of a lioness. So where to start? I visited Liverpool’s World Museum and spent the morning drawing lioness skulls.
Then I developed my ideas drawing lioness heads, linking the external appearance with the underlying bone structure. I wanted to capture the savagery of a snarl based on lifelike representation which has been stylised.
Before starting to carve I still needed to get the shape firmly in my head, so I made a model of the lioness head in plasticine, gradually forming the head from a block. Fundamentally it is a different process because when modelling you can add and remove pieces of plasticine, but with carving you can only remove material. However it still helps to define the shape clearly in my mind. I gradually formed a head remembering to capture the snarl and keeping the eyes of the predator forwards.
My first attempt looked more like a Staffordshire Bull Terrier, so I remodelled it several times more until it became more cat like, then like a big cat. The shape of the nose and ears developed. During the process I was lucky enough to have a day carving with the sculptor Michael Painter. He helped me advising on how to set the eyes in, shape the brow and position the ears.
After several more remodelling sessions it has started to take on the form I had in my mind. Ways of stylising it into a more contemporary form are growing in my mind. Soon I will be able to start carving the lovely air dried block of cherry tree which is tucked away in a black bin bag in my shed.