Shadrach's Lamps

[Shadrach]

Speaking of Marble.....
Still lots to do and it won't make a fundamental change to the shape.
It's hours of hand sanding now. One can only do so much with chisels and rasps.
This piece needs illumination and I'm looking at a different type of light fixture to do the job.
It could be shown as a sculpture but it would still need illumination from above.
It's heavy and I'm considering weight reduction by removing material inside the piece. Heavy is fine until the postage gets taken into account.

 

[Shadrach]

I've been struggling with this. Whatever one chooses to call this, sculpture or lamp, it needs illumination to work. What's more, the light needs to be at a particular height to give the required dramatic effect and it needs to be focuses and bright. This rules out an ordinary bulb holder style light.
I didn't want to mount anything on the top of the lamp if I could avoid it.
I'm going to use a flexible stem spot lamp as used in Adoration and Stereo.
The back of the lamp is pretty much as nature made it. I've cut a location point for the type of spot light mentioned above so the stem location will not normally be visible. Rather conveniently, there is a protrusion just above the location point which will give the stem location some protection should the lamp get knocked over.
It looks a bit rough back there atm but I think it will work out fine.

 

[MaryJanet]

I've been struggling with this. Whatever one chooses to call this, sculpture or lamp, it needs illumination to work. What's more, the light needs to be at a particular height to give the required dramatic effect and it needs to be focuses and bright. This rules out an ordinary bulb holder style light.
I didn't want to mount anything on the top of the lamp if I could avoid it.
I'm going to use a flexible stem spot lamp as used in Adoration and Stereo.
The back of the lamp is pretty much as nature made it. I've cut a location point for the type of spot light mentioned above so the stem location will not normally be visible. Rather conveniently, there is a protrusion just above the location point which will give the stem location some protection should the lamp get knocked over.
It looks a bit rough back there atm but I think it will work out fine.
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This one may be my very favourite of your work Shad.

 

[Shadrach]

This one may be my very favourite of your work Shad.

It's got potential MJ. Many a slip twixt cup and lip though, as the saying has it.
It's certainly shaping up to be the most dramatic in looks.
It's going to have to shape up well to out do Glasscutter which is imo the best recent piece I've done.
Hugo, my taciturn stone sculptor friend, took one look at Glasscutter and said, 'I don't like that, but if saw it on sale I would buy it.' He liked the piece I named after him though.

 

[Aussie-Chookmum]

This one may be my very favourite of your work Shad.

I love it too. (But it has to be my second favorite )

 

[Shadrach]

I've compressed all the pictures to a few kilobytes so they shouldn't slow the page down much.
It's been a bit of an experience has Marble.
I started off with this and some rough idea of what the person I am making this for in mind liked about some of the other pieces I had done. I knew there was something in this lump of wood that with a bit of care and work could make something a bit special.

The front was fairly straightforward once I had cleaned it up and seen what I had got.
The back I had decided to leave as nature made it pretty much. The sides, well, the wood was a mess below the crud and I knew I wanted shape.
I work under a halogen lamp and it became apparent early on that this piece was ideal for illumination. It's thiner at the top and light will shine down and create shadows that would hopefully give the piece a dramatic look if I could carve the right shapes in to it.
One side came reasonably easy; the other side caused me hours of grief.
I did eventually get a rough set of lines carved and it was looking good apart from the illumination problem that kept nagging at the back of my mind.
The problem is best illustrated by these two pictures of Adoration.
In the daylight the piece looks lovely but when empathetically lit it turns into something imo that is quite stunning.

I set off to try to achieve a similar effect. I intended to use a similar spot light but I didn't want the electrics to come out of the top of the lamp so I planed to mount the lamp stem in the back of the lamp where it would be hidden. I drilled the holes, not so easy to match up a vertical hole with another at an angle with a hand drill. I was lucky and the holes lined up.

Then the luck ran out and I broke first a drill bit in one hole and then a screw in another. I got there eventually and had the piece set up for electrics as shown.

When I set up a temporary spot lamp I didn't get anything like the effect I was after. The beam was too narrow! I'm disappointed to saw the least and headed off to see my sculptor friend Hugo who has lots of lighting options and has been doing this stuff all his life.
What I discovered is the light needs to be halogen ideally and it needs to have a beam width wider than the top of the lamp. We got the best effect with two ten watt halogen spots suspended from the ceiling above the piece.

When I showed Hugo the piece he turned it round to look at each face and the said to me 'you've missed a bit.' In his view if I was going to call this a sculpture then all the faces needed to be worked.
So, I went home and sculpted a bit.

I've got a hole in the back though and a couple of places where the wood flakes like a piece of slate. Such faults are often at an angle in the wood and as one sands the fault away it just progresses across the piece. These need to be cut and filled. One such fault was right next to the hole in the back of the piece. That's why there is a slate paste leaf there.

I've made a lot of stuff over the past few years. Most of my work is unusual and of decent quality but every now and then I end up making something a bit special.
Marble is one such piece.
If I put Marble in front of you, you would be hard pressed not to touch it, despite the sharp edges. It's more tactile than Adoration, and correctly lit, maybe not as cute, but it is spectacular.
I think I've made possibly six pieces over the years that I would call priceless. Adoration is one and Marble is another.
Not the greatest pictures and none in daylight because I didn't get a chance today.

 

[rjohns39]

I've compressed all the pictures to a few kilobytes so they shouldn't slow the page down much.
It's been a bit of an experience has Marble.
I started off with this and some rough idea of what the person I am making this for in mind liked about some of the other pieces I had done. I knew there was something in this lump of wood that with a bit of care and work could make something a bit special.
View attachment 2322785

The front was fairly straightforward once I had cleaned it up and seen what I had got.
The back I had decided to leave as nature made it pretty much. The sides, well, the wood was a mess below the crud and I knew I wanted shape.
I work under a halogen lamp and it became apparent early on that this piece was ideal for illumination. It's thiner at the top and light will shine down and create shadows that would hopefully give the piece a dramatic look if I could carve the right shapes in to it.
One side came reasonably easy; the other side caused me hours of grief.
I did eventually get a rough set of lines carved and it was looking good apart from the illumination problem that kept nagging at the back of my mind.
The problem is best illustrated by these two pictures of Adoration.
In the daylight the piece looks lovely but when empathetically lit it turns into something imo that is quite stunning.
View attachment 2322823View attachment 2322824

I set off to try to achieve a similar effect. I intended to use a similar spot light but I didn't want the electrics to come out of the top of the lamp so I planed to mount the lamp stem in the back of the lamp where it would be hidden. I drilled the holes, not so easy to match up a vertical hole with another at an angle with a hand drill. I was lucky and the holes lined up.

Then the luck ran out and I broke first a drill bit in one hole and then a screw in another. I got there eventually and had the piece set up for electrics as shown.
View attachment 2322790
View attachment 2322789

View attachment 2322788

When I set up a temporary spot lamp I didn't get anything like the effect I was after. The beam was too narrow! I'm disappointed to saw the least and headed off to see my sculptor friend Hugo who has lots of lighting options and has been doing this stuff all his life.
What I discovered is the light needs to be halogen ideally and it needs to have a beam width wider than the top of the lamp. We got the best effect with two ten watt halogen spots suspended from the ceiling above the piece.

When I showed Hugo the piece he turned it round to look at each face and the said to me 'you've missed a bit.' In his view if I was going to call this a sculpture then all the faces needed to be worked.
So, I went home and sculpted a bit.

I've got a hole in the back though and a couple of places where the wood flakes like a piece of slate. Such faults are often at an angle in the wood and as one sands the fault away it just progresses across the piece. These need to be cut and filled. One such fault was right next to the hole in the back of the piece. That's why there is a slate paste leaf there.

I've made a lot of stuff over the past few years. Most of my work is unusual and of decent quality but every now and then I end up making something a bit special.
Marble is one such piece.
If I put Marble in front of you, you would be hard pressed not to touch it, despite the sharp edges. It's more tactile than Adoration, and correctly lit, maybe not as cute, but it is spectacular.
I think I've made possibly six pieces over the years that I would call priceless. Adoration is one and Marble is another.
Not the greatest pictures and none in daylight because I didn't get a chance today.
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That's an amazing piece of work.

 

[MaryJanet]

I've compressed all the pictures to a few kilobytes so they shouldn't slow the page down much.
It's been a bit of an experience has Marble.
I started off with this and some rough idea of what the person I am making this for in mind liked about some of the other pieces I had done. I knew there was something in this lump of wood that with a bit of care and work could make something a bit special.
View attachment 2322785

The front was fairly straightforward once I had cleaned it up and seen what I had got.
The back I had decided to leave as nature made it pretty much. The sides, well, the wood was a mess below the crud and I knew I wanted shape.
I work under a halogen lamp and it became apparent early on that this piece was ideal for illumination. It's thiner at the top and light will shine down and create shadows that would hopefully give the piece a dramatic look if I could carve the right shapes in to it.
One side came reasonably easy; the other side caused me hours of grief.
I did eventually get a rough set of lines carved and it was looking good apart from the illumination problem that kept nagging at the back of my mind.
The problem is best illustrated by these two pictures of Adoration.
In the daylight the piece looks lovely but when empathetically lit it turns into something imo that is quite stunning.
View attachment 2322823View attachment 2322824

I set off to try to achieve a similar effect. I intended to use a similar spot light but I didn't want the electrics to come out of the top of the lamp so I planed to mount the lamp stem in the back of the lamp where it would be hidden. I drilled the holes, not so easy to match up a vertical hole with another at an angle with a hand drill. I was lucky and the holes lined up.

Then the luck ran out and I broke first a drill bit in one hole and then a screw in another. I got there eventually and had the piece set up for electrics as shown.
View attachment 2322790
View attachment 2322789

View attachment 2322788

When I set up a temporary spot lamp I didn't get anything like the effect I was after. The beam was too narrow! I'm disappointed to saw the least and headed off to see my sculptor friend Hugo who has lots of lighting options and has been doing this stuff all his life.
What I discovered is the light needs to be halogen ideally and it needs to have a beam width wider than the top of the lamp. We got the best effect with two ten watt halogen spots suspended from the ceiling above the piece.

When I showed Hugo the piece he turned it round to look at each face and the said to me 'you've missed a bit.' In his view if I was going to call this a sculpture then all the faces needed to be worked.
So, I went home and sculpted a bit.

I've got a hole in the back though and a couple of places where the wood flakes like a piece of slate. Such faults are often at an angle in the wood and as one sands the fault away it just progresses across the piece. These need to be cut and filled. One such fault was right next to the hole in the back of the piece. That's why there is a slate paste leaf there.

I've made a lot of stuff over the past few years. Most of my work is unusual and of decent quality but every now and then I end up making something a bit special.
Marble is one such piece.
If I put Marble in front of you, you would be hard pressed not to touch it, despite the sharp edges. It's more tactile than Adoration, and correctly lit, maybe not as cute, but it is spectacular.
I think I've made possibly six pieces over the years that I would call priceless. Adoration is one and Marble is another.
Not the greatest pictures and none in daylight because I didn't get a chance today.
View attachment 2322792View attachment 2322793View attachment 2322794View attachment 2322795View attachment 2322796View attachment 2322797
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It looks like wooden water.

 

[bruceha2000]

In his view if I was going to call this a sculpture then all the faces needed to be worked.

ONE artist's opinion

If I put Marble in front of you, you would be hard pressed not to touch it, despite the sharp edges.

I think that is true of most of your pieces. Most lamps are symmetrical, no need to touch and move it to see the other sides.

Another incredible piece.

 

[Aussie-Chookmum]

I've compressed all the pictures to a few kilobytes so they shouldn't slow the page down much.
It's been a bit of an experience has Marble.
I started off with this and some rough idea of what the person I am making this for in mind liked about some of the other pieces I had done. I knew there was something in this lump of wood that with a bit of care and work could make something a bit special.
View attachment 2322785

The front was fairly straightforward once I had cleaned it up and seen what I had got.
The back I had decided to leave as nature made it pretty much. The sides, well, the wood was a mess below the crud and I knew I wanted shape.
I work under a halogen lamp and it became apparent early on that this piece was ideal for illumination. It's thiner at the top and light will shine down and create shadows that would hopefully give the piece a dramatic look if I could carve the right shapes in to it.
One side came reasonably easy; the other side caused me hours of grief.
I did eventually get a rough set of lines carved and it was looking good apart from the illumination problem that kept nagging at the back of my mind.
The problem is best illustrated by these two pictures of Adoration.
In the daylight the piece looks lovely but when empathetically lit it turns into something imo that is quite stunning.
View attachment 2322823View attachment 2322824

I set off to try to achieve a similar effect. I intended to use a similar spot light but I didn't want the electrics to come out of the top of the lamp so I planed to mount the lamp stem in the back of the lamp where it would be hidden. I drilled the holes, not so easy to match up a vertical hole with another at an angle with a hand drill. I was lucky and the holes lined up.

Then the luck ran out and I broke first a drill bit in one hole and then a screw in another. I got there eventually and had the piece set up for electrics as shown.
View attachment 2322790
View attachment 2322789

View attachment 2322788

When I set up a temporary spot lamp I didn't get anything like the effect I was after. The beam was too narrow! I'm disappointed to saw the least and headed off to see my sculptor friend Hugo who has lots of lighting options and has been doing this stuff all his life.
What I discovered is the light needs to be halogen ideally and it needs to have a beam width wider than the top of the lamp. We got the best effect with two ten watt halogen spots suspended from the ceiling above the piece.

When I showed Hugo the piece he turned it round to look at each face and the said to me 'you've missed a bit.' In his view if I was going to call this a sculpture then all the faces needed to be worked.
So, I went home and sculpted a bit.

I've got a hole in the back though and a couple of places where the wood flakes like a piece of slate. Such faults are often at an angle in the wood and as one sands the fault away it just progresses across the piece. These need to be cut and filled. One such fault was right next to the hole in the back of the piece. That's why there is a slate paste leaf there.

I've made a lot of stuff over the past few years. Most of my work is unusual and of decent quality but every now and then I end up making something a bit special.
Marble is one such piece.
If I put Marble in front of you, you would be hard pressed not to touch it, despite the sharp edges. It's more tactile than Adoration, and correctly lit, maybe not as cute, but it is spectacular.
I think I've made possibly six pieces over the years that I would call priceless. Adoration is one and Marble is another.
Not the greatest pictures and none in daylight because I didn't get a chance today.
View attachment 2322792View attachment 2322793View attachment 2322794View attachment 2322795View attachment 2322796View attachment 2322797
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The light flows down the wood like water over a rock.

Stunning piece Shad.