Art and Design A comprehensive guide for creative artists - Aaltodoc

Keep the wood up right (straight/vertical) in a sheltered
place and it must be well supported—away from the
ground for air to circulate into the wood pores properly. In
general, uneven drying may result into cracks on the surface
of a finished wooden sculpture. Dried or seasoned wood
has less potential of cracking.
By default, if a wood (log) starts to crack—from its centre.
Find a hand drill and make a hole in the centre (of the log).
A drill uses an auger as a spiral bit to make holes.
Then, mix sawdust or wood husks with wood glue and then,
fill the mix into the cracks. Sawdust or wood shavings can
be used to fill up the cracks on a wood.
On the other hand, wood has two levels of quality known as
hardwood and soft wood. These types are also categorised as
deciduous for hard wood and coniferous for soft wood.
Here is a table display showing categories of wood:
Coniferous wood
Deciduous wood
Is composed of cedars, cypress, fir,
hemlock, juniper, larch, pine, sequoia,
spruce and yew.
Consists of ash, beech, elm, eucalyptus,
hickory, lime, mahogany, maple, oak,
plane, teak, satin wood, sycamore and
walnut.
Generally, hardwood is more difficult to carve well into
a sculpture artwork, irrespective of its essential features
like fine forms and high polishes. Yet again, it is good at
withstanding wear, pressure or damage during and after
carving.
Finished wooden sculpture artworks can be well preserved
by polishing on their surfaces with hot wax, or oil. Peck
(2007, 159) suggests, “Kiwi shoe paste wax”—it has got
choices of tones necessary for finishing a wood base.
Ultimately, there is no advice on which type of wood a
sculptor can favourably use to produce a successful work of
art. Practice and skill guides a sculptor to finding suitable
wood for making a sculpture.
Stone sculpture
Stone is an abundant material just like wood. It can be
obtained easily from the environment around us and it
exists in very many types and sizes. Sometimes stone is
used for the time of constructing a sculpture artwork.
In a different way it can be used to make sculpture artworks
by carving. For example marble. In some parts of Africa
steatite/soap-rock (soapstone) is used to make functional
sculptures. It is commonly used by a Kisii tribe found on
the highlands of Nyanza, in western Kenya. Rich (1998, 512)
explains that “steatite is easily cut or carved with a knife and
it is fairly permanent for indoor if precautions are taken to
prevent abrasion.”
Nonetheless, carving stone comes about with painstaking
labour and so does the tools needed. They must be strong
to endure with the slow progress.
As a beginner who might be interested in stone carving,
start with some few available tools such as:
• A metallic mallet or hammer
• A riffler
• Chisels. Where there is scarcity, shape a
• 6 inch nail to make an improvised type of tool
needed to carve a stone.
More tools will keep adding to your limited list accordingly,
depending on the tasks to be undertaken. For instance, dust
masks, hearing protectors and gloves. These are some of the
basic tools, which may be needed for a secured working
process.
Apart from that, in the course of carving stone; its surface
should never be marked or demarcated by using ink pens
since most ink types are permanent. A piece of charcoal or
chalk is good for that purpose.
Always remember to use a sand bag (to rest the stone) in
the course of carving. A sand bag reduces extra noise and
friction onto a stone surface. It also protects and keeps a
sculpture artwork safe from down grading. But since stone
is heavy, it is certainly good for a sculptor to start carving it
from its originating source.
As we mentioned earlier on there are very many
kinds of stone used for executing sculpture
artworks. For instance marble and soap stone,
other types include limestone or sedimentary
(stratified) igneous and metamorphic rocks.
Fundamentally, finishing a sedimentary type of
stone is less easy—particularly limestone.
Examples of metal
tools used for
carving stone
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