Sculpting Stone

Today was a fun day. I had sculpture, which is probably my favorite class, and today meant it was time to start our second and final project: stone carving. First, it was time to sketch in my sketchbook... I brought my soap elephant for reference!

Then, I had to pick a piece of stone. I chose one that is medium sized, though it is still slightly heavy. Hopefully it will be okay to take home (which I have to figure out how to do). Then, it was time to sketch on four sides of the stone piece...

After that, I was finally ready to start carving. I'll admit, I was pretty terrified to start especially since once you take something away, you can't get it back. No pressure or anything. We also were using pretty fancy tools-- saws, chisels, hammers, shavers that remind me of cheese graters... we even needed googles! Here's me just starting off with my saw. I quickly learned that the saw doesn't work the way I want to.

SO, I've been shaving my entire piece so far, which results in a lot of dust (though it almost blends in with the table here). It's really good arm exercise and it is also giving me the curves that I want for the elephant. 

 This was my piece by the end of class. I still have to work on the top and the sides, but once I do that (and take out the circles inn between the legs and the trunk) it should be smooth sailing with the decoration. I'm wondering what I'm going to do in class once I finish this if this project is supposed to last until late April.

I have to be at school by 7:30am tomorrow to go to the police headquarters for my permit of stay (yay...) so 

Ciao for now!