About Carving Metal

The path from visiting a remote landscape to carving metal in my studio is fairly complex. Painting and drawing are always involved. Photographic imagery is sometimes part of the process. Frequently the imagery on the metal is based on plein air painting; at other times it derives from drawings or panoramic photographs.

Going into the landscape of remote Alaska for two weeks at a time is a very important part of my life. I hike, sketch and paint. Frequently I take photographs and digitally stitch them together to create panoramas. These photographic panoramas are the result of stitching as mny as 36 different photographs.

Prior to working on metal, I do a lot of preparatory drawings to refine my design. Sometimes I will do several variations of the same scene in different sizes. The process of carving is one of trial and revision, based on observation of the dynamic effects of light and reflection. It is fairly taxing labor, requiring a firm but delicate touch with power and hand tools.

After carving I coat the surface with alkyd medium to protect it from tarnishing. If I chose to paint the carved metal, I use the best grades of transparent oil paint thinned with alkyd medium. There is a strong affinity between the copper and copper alloys with alkyd medium. These paintings and supporting metal are very stable and should last essentially unchanged for hundreds of years.

I have carved and painted aluminum, copper, bronze and zinc, and I see nothing to preclude doing the same on mild steel. Each metal and alloy has its own peculiarities. My preference is determined by esthetic considerartions on the one hand, and by practicaal issues, such as weight, availibility, scale and budget. Though the manner and style of carving are distinctly my own, I owe a consierable debt to Krishna Reddy, for his invention of viscosity printing and his approach to caving zinc plates.