…. nothing comes along for ages and then 3 come along at once.
I know you’re thinking thats a bit of an odd thing to say, its not that I’m saying that carving jobs are rare, more that the same kind job never usually comes along twice in a row.
Ok so I mainly carve picture frames so technically I’m doing the same job time after time but the patterns and sizes are constantly changing. Out of 3 jobs I have completed recently two have been for egg n dart carving, admittedly one was for the edge of an oak table top seen here , the other was lengths for the pediment at the top of a couple of doors for a museum in London.
This image shows the end of the run of egg n dart as it is about to go round the corner so the final egg has a leaf design on it, probably orginally to hide the fact that it was a different size to the others in the length. I worked mainly from photographs and a site visit, but as I am a coward and really don’t like ladders I couldn’t climb the tall ladder to get a good look at the originals as they are deceptively high up!
Egg n Dart Carving in Utile
I have never carved in Utile before and it wasn’t a particularly pleasant experience ( I have another tale to tell on this subject with another part of this job but it will have to wait until another post).
I had to make sure that my gouges were especially sharp and kept well honed in order to cut throught the wood cleanly (thanks to a helpful hint from a contact on Twitter!). I think that they turned out quite well in the end.
On the plus side my client was very pleased with the job, and so was their client. The lengths also look good with all the rest of the joinery, I can’t wait to see them in situ, I’ll see if I can get some pics once they’re up.
