[dorsa]

I am new and my english is not good

In this topic I want show you carving symbol in stone .
first I selected a suitable stone.

and them draw the symbol

remove extra parts



Unfortunately there was a flaw in stone and when I removed stone around the design the tail of snakes broke.
and I cut it.


and next the shape and body of snakes and heart appears.

and more details

and backside

and semi finish ready for setup of precious stone on body of snake and making a hole on top.

hope this was useful
dorsa

[Mike Ruslander]

Thank you, Dorsa. Great first post, and your English is just fine. Keep posting and welcome.

[Janel]

Hello Dorsa,

Welcome to The Carving Path Forum! Thank you for the introduction of your work by posting a stone carving tutorial. Is the stone a softer kind or very hard? What tools do you use?

I am curious about where you are from. Is Persepolis in Iran? I agree with Mike, your written English is very good and easy to understand. Many thanks to you for sharing your information with us by using English language.

Janel

[dorsa]

Janel, on May 11 2009, 05:32 PM, said:

Hello Dorsa,

Welcome to The Carving Path Forum! Thank you for the introduction of your work by posting a stone carving tutorial. Is the stone a softer kind or very hard? What tools do you use?

I am curious about where you are from. Is Persepolis in Iran? I agree with Mike, your written English is very good and easy to understand. Many thanks to you for sharing your information with us by using English language.

Janel

Thanks Janel.
The hardness of this stone is like lapis lazuli something around 5-5.5 mohs and semi hard the special bright dark gray color of this stone after polishing make it useful for jewels but with other precious stones ...
Yes Persepolis is in Iran and then I am from there .
I am not a carver I do it just for fun hope my works help others .
for carving I use steel pins and hammer next micromotor and diamond bur an at end diamond files and sand paper and different polish powders.
I know my works isn't professional but I try to learn more and use others experiences .
dorsa

[Jim Kelso]

Welcome Dorsa and thanks for sharing your work.

Jim

[Toothy]

Hi Dorsa
Welcome and thank you for your posting.
Your design reminds me of Celtic designs, both of which are old, very old symbols.
Please keep posting.
Toothy

[Phil White]

Welcome, Dorsa

Thanks for posting your photos. I noticed the Celtic influence as well. Hope you feel welcome here and continue to share your work with us.

Phil

[dorsa]

OK this is a very very simple way to carving from clay to stone.
unfortunately I forgot take photos from primary stone and the clay creation cameo.
I have to photos.

I used the clay of my kid to create primary style of a lion face as you can see in photo.
I create the clay cameo of lion less than 5 min by a kitchen knife the quality is low but still it can show us something about itself.
first I expand the clay as a thick layer next by pressing clay the lion face appeared I repeat it "just by pressing" .


this procedure give us this idea the position of lion face individual parts and how and when remove extra parts similarly in stone.

and at end you can see the finished neck pendant
(white solomon agate)without it's silver frame and ruby eye.



yes two sculptures (lion in clay and lion in stone) are different but the bases is the same.

I hope this give you some idea about clay to stone.

[dorsa]

OK in this carving I'll show you in progress carving of a snake.
I used that black stone for carving in below photo you can see first stage of carving :
Just removing extra parts.



with every progress I'll put images .

Dorsa

[dorsa]

Well at this time we shape the body of snake as you can see in below photo :



the carving is totally rough but the overall figure is clear this is the base of work. after
this stage we just do fine work to appearing other parts of snake's body.

Dorsa

[dorsa]

And now some extra carving about snake tail



Now rough carving is finished and most of rough details are carved .

[dorsa]

Ok at this stage fine carving is done.
The body of snake is completed and every detail is appeared .



so only polishing is remained.

[dorsa]

Now this is the stage : polishing
you can see semi polished body of snake .
There is some extra work for finishing like snake skin and setup some precious stone and silver frame ...




I hope this carving give you some Idea.

[dorsa]

This carving is apart of cane . the head of cane has two part :
1- lion head (lapis lazuli)
2- Silver/Gold frame for lion head

I just carved the lion head and unfortunately have not any Idea about the rest of cane(I am not owner).
I guess this cane is somewhat precious and the owner never use it for walking .

OK first step for carving is drawing the lion face and removing extra part as you can see in below Images.

From besides :



From head on :



As you can see this carving is very simple and easy . One of mu friend gave me this Rubble as a gift.
the quality of stone is soso but is useful for cane. Totally the Lapis Azuli stone carving is easy it is not very hard (5 mohs) and something like ivory a little harder. The best source of Lapis is Afghanistan that this country is located east of Iran and we can easily obtain it . the price of rough stone with respect to quality differ from 10$ to 100$ per Kg .
I used Lapis as base stone for this carving because this stone in our culture is very important not only for carving but also for painting . you can find existence of it in precious carving and painting from "Achaemenid" Empire (550–330 BC) till now.

anyway I hope this give you new Idea.

Dorsa

[Janel]

Thank you Dorsa for posting the photos and description of your carving projects. They have been very interesting to follow as the work progresses.

Janel

[Novice Carver]

Dorsa, awesome carvings brother. The snakes with entwined tails reminds me of the caduceus, symbolic of the DNA double helix and the rising of consciousness. Are there any legends in Iran regarding the sons of the serpent? I wish I knew more about your culture, but I'm afraid what is portrayed by western media is not very accurate. Great to see your work.