The letters are to Sue's specifications and she also supplied the oak, which is beautiful but could be a bit splintery for the unwary carver to cut letters into! It should last well outdoors though.
My name is Alistair Park and I'm a professional carver who is based in Bristol, England. I've been carving for over twenty-eight years and I also enjoy teaching my skills to people of all ages. You'll find posts here about all kinds of things to do with carving; the work that I do, the people that I meet and the things that I see which inspire me. Please feel free to comment on anything of interest, it'd be great to hear from you!
Tuesday, 20 December 2011
Lettercutting in oak
I've just finished this lettercutting for a friend's house sign. It's a sort of a 'thank you' for showing my work in an exhibition called 'Inspired', which she curated at Westonbirt Arboretum in Gloucestershire.
The letters are to Sue's specifications and she also supplied the oak, which is beautiful but could be a bit splintery for the unwary carver to cut letters into! It should last well outdoors though.
The letters are to Sue's specifications and she also supplied the oak, which is beautiful but could be a bit splintery for the unwary carver to cut letters into! It should last well outdoors though.
Monday, 19 December 2011
New blog and new project
Welcome to my new blog!
May as well start with a really interesting project... I've been asked to carve a new figurehead for the 'Matthew'. This is the replica of the boat in which John Cabot (or Giovanni Caboto as his parents called him) sailed from Bristol to discover Newfoundland . It's a bit of a Bristol landmark and it's very exciting to have the chance to do the figurehead. The first figurehead fell off when the replica ship hit a lightship in 2007.
Here's a couple of images taken by Thom, who is one of the Matthew's crew. I went over the side in November to get some measurements in order to start getting the timber to carve. That water certainly looked cold! Beats sitting in an office any day though.
In case you are wondering what the design will be, I've decided to use the same one as the figurehead which the replica was originally fitted with - a talbot.
This is a heraldic dog, pale coloured with floppy ears and its tongue hanging out. Noone knows what the original 'Matthew' had as a figurehead (if it had one at all) but apparently these dogs were kept near the harbour to rescue people who fell in. No human would want to go near the waters, as the harbour was pretty much an open sewer in those days. I'm hoping to use some Lawson cypress which was growing in the Ashton Court estate to make the carving. Further news as it happens...