Wood and stone carvings - Essay Example

WOOD AND STONE CARVINGS Introduction Wood and stone carvings are forms of working wood and stones by means of cutting or shaping resulting to a stone or wooden figure or the commonly known sculptural ornamental figures of wooden or stone objects (Adamson, 2013). Wood carvingWood carving to make sculptures has been widely practiced for eons even though its survival is much less than that of stone (Sayers, 2012). This is because of its vulnerability to decay, fire and insect damage. The practice forms a very important element of the art history of several cultures.

That is why many of the Japanese and Chinese culture sculpture are wooden. Other traditional and cultural use of wood artistically include making of decoys as well as fish carvings. These are common across cultures. Cultural Due to woods lightness and ability to take very fine details, it is very suitable for sculpting marks and other ornaments that can be worn by people. Moreover, wood is much easier to sculpt than stone and is cheaper. As discussed by Sayers, C. M. (2012) various methods and techniques exist for wood sculpting.

These include: chip curving, relief carving, caricature, whittling, treen and lovespoon and Scandinavian flat plane among others. Techniques involved on the other hand include use of tools like V tool, curving knives, veiner, chisel, gouge, copping saw etcetera. These tools are used in different methods to come up with the beautiful artistic and cultural sculptures that are used by diverse societies. The carvings could also be colored, or sealed to protect the wood from moisture and dirt. Stone carving Shuman, A. (2015) discuses stone carving as amongst the ancient activities that involved use of stone to make ornamental sculptures.

Stone works created during the prehistoric periods are in existent to date owing to the materials. Stone carvings in the early days were done through use of hard stones to scratch the softer ones in to shape. However, the discovery of iron has made it possible for manufactory of tools like chisels that can now be used to achieve the desired shapes even more easily. This process commences with selection of stones that are suitable for curving. The stone can be an inspiration for the object curved out of it while in some cases some artist would be having idea I the mind and look out for the best stone.

Large portions are then knocked off the stone and then a chisel is brought in to action to shape the intended statue. The final product is then smoothen and its shaped enhanced with rasps and rifflers. Li, X. H. (2011) explains that stones have been used for carving sculpture for many years due to it’s the ease of finding a variety of suitable curving stones. Further, their durability makes them more suitable than wood carvings. Additionally, stones are available in a variety of color, hardness and sizes and quality.

The tools used in stone carving includes: mallets, hatchets and hummers which are useful for percussion; pitching tools, feathers and wedges which are useful for shaping; drills, stones, and grinding wheels which are useful for removal of abrasive nature of the stones to get a smooth sculpture.Both wood and stone curving are useful for making ornamental products which include jewelry, sculpture and traditional or cultural ornaments.ReferenceSayers, C. M. (2012). The Book of Wood Carving. Courier Corporation.

Adamson, G. (2013). The invention of craft.Shuman, A. (2015). 1.5 Narrative and the Transmission of Traditions: Informal Learning Among Italian Artisan Stone Carvers. In International Handbook of Interpretation in Educational Research (pp. 185-208). Springer Netherlands.Li, X. H. (2011). Research about Techniques of Chinese Traditional Architectural Stone Carving. Advanced Materials Research, 154, 1232-1239.