Piecemeal the Elephant
Like most folk, I do like wildlife and a favourite of mine is the Elephant. I have long planned a carving but never had the right wood to do one. Then I was given this plank of aged Sycamore which to me was the right colour, but not the block I had thought of using. The original idea was a relief carving an Elephant near a waterhole and other wild animals nearby within the trees and Mount Kilimanjaro in the background. Very picturesque I know, but this wasn’t going to work with the 2” thickness of the plank I had, it wouldn’t have the full effect I wanted. I used part of the plank for another project and I had one large piece and a number of bigger bits. The bigger bits I had left were big enough for the head and the legs, if they were laminated together, but not enough to make the body and back legs unless I used all the planks and that seemed a waste…Quandry and time passed by. Covid came and all outside work stopped, We were self-isolating, but this elephant idea kept nagging.
After Covid lockdown 3, we had a holiday booked to Derbyshire and I would normally take a carving or 2 with me. I decided to just do a study of the Elephant’s head and started carving. Somewhere along in the month that followed, the front legs got added. I continued carving and all was good and then the way the head tilted suggested a body…I looked at all the bits I had and then came up with the idea of sticking them all together and adding as much of a body as I could…half to be precise. Hence Piecemeal the Elephant came into existence cause that’s how he came together and he’s not fully complete.
I got everything together and shaped and it looked good, but there is always a part of me that can’t leave it and say STOP!!!!!!!! I was trying to get halfway to the waterhole idea. and started adding trees for the Elephant to come through to mask the missing part of his body. One day deep in sawdust from shaping trees I had the elephant in the garden with the sun shining on it after I had cleaned it. With a cup of tea in hand, I looked at it and I saw it WAS good and it didn’t need anything else. At that point, I polished it and left it.
I was lucky enough to have some burr Sycamore left over for the stand, but not quite enough, so a piece was added to add weight and depth.
Progression
From start to finish
