Carving the Christmas Lamb (Taglio il Agnello di Natale)

This weekend, I thought it would be nice to carve a marble relief of a sheep, since a parent of some neighborhood friends really likes sheep. By like, I mean this lady completely loves sheep to an obsessive and freakish level with sheep images all around her house (not the kind of obsessive and freakish love that people who are making fun of citizens of Arkansas reference).














The carving still needs a bit of clean-up, particularly around the hindquarters, but it looks like it will be ready in time to be a Christmas gift. I was thinking of including a note with it like 'Bah-aahhaaahhh Humbug' or maybe '...ohhh this was a white *elephant* party'.

Speaking of sacrificial lambs, I feel sorry for all the Nebraska college football fans whose team was completely dominated the entire game by the University of Texas team this weekend. It wasn't even close as the kicker made a 46 yard field goal to ensure a healthy 8.3% point total lead to win the game. Nebraska had 12 points.

Carving like a Slave (Intagliando Come uno Schiavo...)

I've just been carving marble like a slave this weekend. A highly trained slave with some cold Japanese beer, which I'm pretty sure they didn't have back in the olden days. Well, I take that back, because in the first century AD, 30% of the entire population of Rome was made up of slaves, so they probably had beer readily accessible, but I'm not entirely sure if they'd made contact with the Japanese yet.

Did I mention it was hot outside? It was 103F / 39.4C outside and I was feeling it.

Here are some pictures of the progression as of Saturday. I love the way the V-incised letters cast shadows. This kind of result cannot be obtained through sandblasting with a rubber mat (the quick and skill-less alternative). The curves in the letters are particularly fun to carve (as I found out with the 'D', and then the 'C' on Sunday).

Also, I've been booking hotel rooms for the Italy trip. Mom (who I'm taking) is excited, and I can't wait to be back in Venice again.

Clearly visible is my Tom Perkins book, which is the best book on stone lettering I've ever even heard of. His work is amazing and the book is too, and has helped me realize this project.

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Sto intagliando le lettere in un segno di pietra. La birra ha aiutato a me per non essere uno schiavo. Sarò in Italia in ottobre se chiunque ha marmi buona da vendere a me. ;)

Signs and Lost Marbles (Segno di Marmo, Pazzo)

This weekend between trips to the 24 Hr Fitness pool and such, I got out the 'tools of the marble carving trade' and sawed and sanded the awesome piece of marble that has been sitting in the workshop begging for attention. I tend to forget how heavy marble is until I have to hand-guide it across my diamond saw holding it steady to make precision cuts. This particular piece is a 1 x 0.4 meters and slab thickness.

If you try all this at home, be sure to get a round hammer, because when lettering with the flat chisels, every strike is always flush when you don't have to worry about the striking head turning at an angle. My two chisels are 6mm and 10mm, easily resharpened with abrasives such as sand paper, diamond pads, or toothpaste. They do not have names yet, mostly because that would just be weird and partly because only rock stars who play guitar can get away with that.

The marble specimen itself is Afyon Purple Paonazzo, which in ancient times would have been highly prized during Hadrian's reign because he apparently liked the stone. It has been quarried in Turkey (Phrygia) for thousands of years. I decided to use the non polished side of the slab for the carving because it will make the result look more genuine.

To get the layout right, I tried running it through the printer, but it didn't work very well and it kept saying 'PC Load Letter' whatever that means.













Then, the paper printout of the best version of Trajan font came out like the ambulance sign on the award winning Open Letters Blog, but that was ok, because it helped me with my layout of the text in the next step.

I ended up drawing the line spacing and text with a soft lead mechanical pencil, which worked very well.














Doesn't my paonazzo piece look similar to many of the ancient building floors in Rome? Here is the floor of the Pantheon.



















Next, I'll start the v-incised letter carving itself, but the prep work had to be done. Still haven't decided whether to fill in the notched carving with bronze or some other gilded metal. If the notches of the letters are cut deep enough it should be visible from pretty far away, after all Rome had a few years to get the whole public signage thing right.

I'll be passing through Carrara Italy this fall, I wonder how much marble I can carry back?

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Ho iniziato un segno in marmo per una piscina. Si spera, sembra molto vecchio. Può essere difficile per la progettazione lettere vecchio.

Why They Carved Backwards (Perché hanno intagliato retromarcia)

A long time ago, people left their mark in wax using intaglio carvings, which are carvings that are the reverse of what you wanted to see, pressed in wax dripped by candle. The primary use was to seal letters, but we cannot rule out that they might also have used them to make candies and little fancy butter pats with them.

Typically, they would be carved from carnelian or sard stone (as in sardonyx) and set in a ring. Carnelian is about my 14th favorite mineral I think. I bought these carnelian stones recently from a place in Colorado fancifully named 'The Gypsum Rose'. They were originally found in Madagascar, which sources some of the best exotic specimens these days. In order for you to have a really good and easily familiar frame of reference for how large the stones are, I included a perfect silver denarius of Alexander the Great with a seated victory in the picture.













The woman image at the top is an intaglio from the first century identified as Augustus Caesar's sister Octavia from the Luigi Cesnola collection provenance. It's weird to think that a family member or she herself might have stamp-sealed scrolls with this very object, or used it as a very small id badge for work or something.

I really want to buy a few tiny diamond bits and give intaglio carving into carnelian a try, but I have to come up with some good subject matter, maybe like the image below? I blame suggested YouTube cartoon watching mostly. I've read that ancient carvers would typically make a normal relief image, then cast that into a hard material, then fit it against the stone when carving to see where material still needed to be removed. That sounds a bit easier than just 'thinking backwards' when carving...

The Getty museum in California has a great exhibit going until September on gems and intaglio carvings by such great artists as Epimenes, Solon and Gnaios. And who can forget Dioskourides? The Getty article covers some information on the counterfeiting of these objects in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Anybody going?

There are quite a few intaglios on Ebay in various qualities, but hardly any of them are authentic antiquities, so as always, please be careful when shopping for old stuff. Particularly careful if the item in question has a Warner Brothers character carved in.

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Voglio ritagliarsi storico firma anelli. Ho potuto acquistare uno, ma tutti vignette. Pertanto, lo so che non antiche. ;)