Forward Thinking
My daughter and I have similar tastes and she sent me a picture of an ornament she had and asked if I could do something similar. She had seen the figures with the legs supporting the arms and head, but no bodies to speak of. Unfortunately, they can be fragile so a more robust figure was needed. The silver figure below is what she sent me and I found the head reading the book on Pinterest in my research. She liked it but felt it was a bit introspective and wanted a more outward-looking figure. something facing the stars.
I tried to carve a bodiless figure but it broke in the first carving attempt. The second was a cross-legged version with full body and arms holding its head. The idea was this would support everything in a more sturdy way, but unfortunately, the arms broke off at the elbows and didn’t look too good when stuck back on. This was getting expensive…
The final attempt worked because the head was supported by the piece that was cut out from between the head and the body until near the end when I had to be brave. This left only the upper body and the back of the head to shape and it was done with nervous care.
The optical illusion of the head still being on the body, work reasonably well from the front and the back. It was polished with danish oil and carved out of lime. This was the last carving of 2019 and its been an eventful year…
