Creating ‘VIRTUE’ – The Process of Carving a Great Horned Owl
I had just returned home from a week long visit to my hometown of Prince George BC and I was ready(ish) to get back to work. I had planned to continue with carving a grizzly bear but was also exploring the idea of carving a different animal simply as a way to keep myself engaged and interested in the artwork I am creating.
Last October, there was a bit of a lull in my business and I was forced to take a good hard look at how I was applying myself and how I could adjust things to ensure I get my business and art practice thriving. And I wouldn’t just end up in the same spot 6 months from now.
I realized I needed to get back to the ROOTS of my business, and to take care of the foundation, and so I decided I would focus primarily on bears as a point of strengthening the core, foundation, and roots of my business. In recent months as I have continued to carve bears I have also been branching out with a new series of abstract pieces and upon returning to the carving studio recently after a week off in my hometown, I decided to continue with the wildlife theme but this time I’d carve an owl.
Over the years I have developed a strong understanding of how long it takes to carve different kinds of bears and so I can essentially budget for it. However whenever I introduce a new animal to carve there is always an x-factor in terms of how long it will actually take to execute.
On the strength of a few recent sales I decided now would be a good time to carve something new and so decided to carve a great horned owl and also to allow myself to take however much time I needed to complete it.
Many collectors I am sure don’t realize that when they buy one of my artworks it directly affects the flow of artwork I create and that often recent sales of my work set the stage for what I will be carving next. To me, the creative cycle for each piece is actually complete when the piece sells and I can reinvest that money into the next piece.
The soapstone I used for this piece was what my supplier calls ‘Color Plus’. While at his warehouse picking out my latest batch of stone he pointed me towards this large pile of boulders that hadn’t yet been processed meaning, often he will pre-cut stones so you can see the color on the inside, but this particular pile hadn’t been cut yet so they all had the same generic grey color as they typically do in their raw state.
I sorted through the pile and pulled out a boulder I thought would be nicely suited to carve a walking grizzly bear trusting that color would be some combination of green, orange, and copper earth tones typical of Brazilian soapstone, a trustworthy stone with consistently unique and interesting combinations.
I allowed ‘chance’ to become part of the creative process here where I would only eventually see the color of the stone once I began carving it.
For me chance or random events will always be a part of the creative process and so I welcome and even invite them and find they can often bring a lot of energy to the work that can sometimes become extinguished to with too much control.
If you always invited the same people to your parties they might get boring. But tell your guests to bring a friend and things could get interesting, now you have new dimensions that you could have never anticipated which this allows for new combinations and relationships to emerge.
Back in the studio, now with an owl in mind, I realized if I flipped the color-plus stone I selected for the walking grizzly bear up on end it would actually work for this owl piece I was envisioning. I wondered how much time it would actually take to carve this. Each piece I carve has this time-money relationship embedded into it. By now I have learned how long a bear will take to carve but with new animals this time-estimation process is not as refined. So there was a bit of an x-factor regarding time when it came to carving this owl.
With the design of this piece I wanted to create an asymmetrical design with the feet. I really liked how versatile the owls feet and tallons are when clutching onto whatever branch or stump it is resting on. So with my piece I decided to push one foot down while pulling the other one up positioning it on a slight angle. I felt it was quite successful and the feet ended up being one of my favorite aspects of this carving. Its quite interesting how sometimes the most subtle shifts in how I pose the animal, weather it’s the slight turning of the head or angle of the feet often add so much to the final artwork.
The color ended up suiting the owl quite nicely with a combination of deep greens, browns and coppers.
I normally like to leave elements of the piece un oiled which I did with the logs the owl is standing on. I find this breaks the design up a bit and places the main focus onto the owl.
I have the finished piece sitting here in front of me as I write this blog. I will bring it into the studio tomorrow to photograph it and it will spend some time in our home before heading off the gallery and I am sure eventually connect with the right collector.
Overall, I am quite satisfied with this piece and see it as a unique carving in my overall inventory. Its only my second owl I have ever carved. The last was a grey owl done around 3 or 4 years ago and about half the size of this one. Its fascinating to see how far I have come when I compare the 2 pieces. This one has much more definition and depth of detail.
I think I will title it ‘VIRTUE’.
Thanks For Reading.
Andrew.
