Spent two hours carving a heron's arse and I'd say the dog could do better

There's a heron block on the bench since last week and I'm after getting to the bit nobody warns you about, which is the part where the legs meet the body. Sounds simple. It is not. Get it wrong and you've got a bird standing in a bucket.

Anyroad, I carved it, pulled a proof, and the whole thing reads like a heron in wellingtons for the winter. The shoulders are too heavy where I tried to be clever with the shading and now he looks like he's been at the spuds all his life.

The thing is, I know what's wrong and I know roughly how to fix it, and I still sat looking at it for two hours with a mug of tea gone cold instead of just doing it. Eventually the small lad came in looking for his crayons, saw it, and said "he's fierce fat isn't he." Out of the mouths.

He's not wrong either. So it's back to the block tomorrow, take the shoulders down and stop being precious about it. That's the whole job really, being willing to cut away the bit you were pleased with. Put it up on the wall for the night so I don't have to look at him anymore. The dog's not a bit impressed either.

8comments

Add your reply to this discussion…

8 comments

Teddy Lin·2w

the heron in wellingtons is the most accurate way anyone's ever described a bad joint between two forms. it's always the transition that eats you, never the bit you thought you'd be good at. i do it with necks, that spot where the shoulder rolls into the throat, i'll spend an afternoon convincing myself i can fix it with one more pass and just make it worse. the fact that you can name what's wrong is honestly the whole thing, the two hours staring is just your hand catching up to your eye. also bold of you to assume the dog isn't just sitting there taking notes

Lukas Brandt·2w

"Your hand catching up to your eye" is a good way to put it, though I think it flatters the eye. Half the time my eye is the one lying to me, telling me the passage is nearly there so I keep the brush moving. The transitions are where the painting decides whether it is a painting. Too soft and it turns to fog, too hard and you have two pictures sharing a frame. Sometimes the fix is not one more pass but the wrong one, deliberately, just to break the spell of the thing you have talked yourself into. Anyway tell the dog I want a cut.

Niall DohertyOP·2w

"the eye is the one lying" is a fair correction, and I'll take it. I've stood over a block convinced the shoulder was grand, turned it to the window, and watched it go soft on me like a pint left sitting. you stop trusting the eye after a while and start trusting the thumb, running it over the cut to feel what the light's hiding.

and the wrong pass to break the spell, that's the real one. I've done it with a gouge more than a brush, taken a swipe I knew was too deep just to stop the block lying to me about where it was at. sometimes you need to wreck it a bit to see it true.

dog says no. he's flat out and he doesn't carve for anyone. I'll pass on the message but I'm not waking him for it.

Niall DohertyOP·2w

Neck into the shoulder, that's the same knot in a different jumper. It's the one bit of the body that's doing two jobs at once, holding the head up and joining onto the trunk, and you can't carve "two jobs" you can only carve one shape and hope. I had a hare a year back that lost nine days to exactly that spot. Nine days, and the fix in the end was to take material away, not add it, which is the insult of the whole trade.

And you're dead right about the eye lying. Your man above said the hand catches up to the eye but I'd say it's the reverse half the time, the eye gets fond of a passage because you've been staring at it, and the hand keeps cutting to please it. The proof is the only honest one in the room. Pull it, walk away, come back after the dinner and it tells you the truth in one look.

The dog's taking notes alright. He's better at sitting still than I am and he's never once second-guessed himself.

Tomáš Havel·2w

The joint is where the sculpture confesses. Anyone can carve a beak. You put two hours into the heron's arse and that is not wasted time, that is where the thing either stands up or wears wellingtons forever.

I spent most of one summer once welding a transition between a steel girder and a mountain of coat hangers. Nobody would ever look at it directly. Everybody would feel it if it was wrong. Same problem, different bird.

The two hours staring is the work, by the way. The carving is just what you do while the staring finishes.

Mira Vey·2w

the coat hanger bit is the part I keep coming back to. a whole summer on a seam nobody will look at, and every person who walks past it feels it. that's the whole job really.

except I'd push back a little on the two hours being the work. half the time I've spent two hours staring it's because I already know what's wrong and I'm hoping the answer will change. the staring is only the work on the days it ends with me picking the tool back up.

Niall DohertyOP·2w

See, you've caught me there and I'll take the correction. Because you're right, there's two kinds of staring and I was doing the bad kind. The good kind is the hands off the block and the eye working, sussing the line. The bad kind is me at the bench with the tea gone cold, knowing fine well the shoulder wants taking down a mil and just not wanting to hear it. That's not work, that's me sulking with a chisel in me hand.

And the tell is exactly what you said. If the two hours ends with me picking the tool up, grand, that was thinking. If it ends with me going in for the dinner and telling herself I'm "studying the block," that was avoidance and I know it.

Anyway I went back to it this morning before the kids were up, cut the shoulder down, and the heron's standing on his own two legs now instead of sinking into a bucket. Coat hanger summer well spent.

Niall DohertyOP·2w

The coat hangers got me. A whole summer welding a seam nobody will ever look at and everybody would feel, that's exactly it. And you're right that it's never the beak. The beak's great crack altogether, you're flying it, you're thinking you might be a bit of a genius, and then the bird has to actually stand on something and the whole thing falls apart at the ankles.

I've been at this long enough to know the two hours staring isn't laziness and I still fight it every single time. The hands want to be doing. Sit down, look at it, take the tea out to the shed, look at it again.

That heron's getting one more go at the weekend. If the legs come right he'll stand, and if they don't he's going in the bin with the rest of the wellington brigade and I'll tell nobody he ever existed.