Day 2 + 45 Minutes

Day 2 + 1.5 Hours

This is the same view as above, but you can see the progess I've made. Once I had the profile roughed in, I began shaping the head.

The rasp is my favourite tool. It cuts the stone fairly quickly, but not so fast as to get me into trouble. You can see the rasp marks on the bear's shoulders. The head has been smoothed a bit by a file.

You can also see where I've left a bit of material where the ears will be.

(In case you're wondering, I draped a newspaper behind the carving so that the bear would stand out a bit more in these photos. It also hides some of the clutter on my bench.)

Day 2 + 1.5 Hours

This angle shows that the right side of the bear is progressing too. His right rear leg will be visible, so I've begun to rough it in. (His left rear leg will be tucked under his body.)

Also visible is a pencil mark where the ear will be. This is to remind me not to remove any stone from this area as I shape the head.

At this point I feel it's safe to say that this is recognizable as a bear.

Day 2 + 1.5 Hours

This photo was taken just seconds after the previous one, so there is no progress to show. But you can see that the silhouette is accurate from any angle. (One of my favourite quotations on sculpture is by Rodin... "Sculpture is the study of a thousand silhouettes".) 

As I carve, I constantly turn the piece around so that I can see it from every angle. This ensures that I don't make any unrecoverable errors.

Here you can see the centre-line" that I drew onto the carving This helps me attain symmetry.

This is the end of day 2. I work eight hours a day in my 'day job', so I can only fit in about ninety minutes of carving into my evenings. That's the problem with 'day jobs'... they interfere with your life.