As a stone carver working in the UK I am lucky to have quite a range of local stones to choose from. That is not to say I will not work with imported materials, but my practice is generally based around using British stones. Different stones have very different properties. Some stones are close-grained and good for detailed work and others are coarser and lend themselves to bolder designs and simpler forms. Choosing the right material for the job is something that comes with experience. Some clients will come with a specific need in terms of material pallet and if this is very limited due to ..read more

My work is informed by many things. There is naturally the direct influence from my 5 years at the Richard Kindersley Studio. In my time there I was primarily carving letters, thousands of letters, putting in the hours. I think I must have carved around 25-30,000 letters in that time according to my calculations. If one believes the theory that to become an expert you need to practice for 10,000 hours then my 5 years did exactly that – I’ve done that maths too (nerded out a bit there, sorry). Richard’s father David was apprenticed to Eric Gill, and there is a kind of direct line from Gil ..read more

etched, incised, set in a panel or bas-relief When creating a piece of work that is essentially in relief as opposed to a fully three dimensional sculpture there are different ways of incorporating the various elements. Elements such as form, shape, texture, carved imagery and lettering all need to balance to make a successful design. Different projects bring different possibilities and one must adapt the design to suit the specific setting and the chosen material, while considering scale, lighting, durability and the visual impact. Some materials are well suited to fine very detailed work, w ..read more

I had a site visit today to check some measurements for a plaque I’m designing, and enjoyed looking at the exquisite carving and detailing there. There was a lot of Hopton Wood limestone larger columns and Derbyshire fossil stone pillars, also lots of exotic marble. These pictures show some of the sculpture and materials ..read more

A previous stone bowl I have been making a bowl recently and thought I’d show you the different stages in the process. Every stone is different, and my working techniques and choice of blades will vary according to what works best. It’s often a case of just trying things out, and seeing what cuts and abrases best. Firstly, I selected a sound slab of stoneDisc cutter, with nice new blade, cutting the rough outline. With this Caithness stone, I initially used a multi purpose 12″ disc cutting blade. I then found a 5″ granite flush cut blade worked much better than the marble/limestone ones. Then ..read more

I have recently been working on designs for a memorial to a compositor. For those of you that don’t know, a compositor was a person who arranged movable type for printing lettering. The family emailed me these wonderful membership cards of his. I thought they may be of interest. They reflect the era somewhat, and I think they’re great. Talking of typesetting, a few months ago I visited The Type Archive in Stockwell, London, and it was a fascinating trip. There was an amazing collection of old typesetting machinery and associated equipment. Their website is great too: “The Type Archive holds t ..read more

Well, it’s been a weird few months hasn’t it, with the COVID situation. I have pretty much been able to continue as my design room is at home, and we have been careful to alternate time in the workshop, and Dan (my long suffering dust maker!) has been able to carve things at home during the worst of the lockdown. So here are a few pictures of what we’ve been working on recently. Willow carving, reverse of Welsh slate memorialThe front of the previous memorial, destined for Black Isle near Inverness Oak tree relief for a small tree marker memorial in NorthumberlandRustic sculptural York stone s ..read more

I was able to finish the gilding yesterday as the cathedral was empty, which was ideal for uninterrupted loose leaf work. Here are the final pictures Gold enamel undercoatApplication of tinted gold size with tester patches Gold leaf laid in, ready to sand backAfter sandingClose up. These are only 20mm tallAnother close up Gilding is always quite a fraught business, laying in the gold too soon and it wrinkles up, and too late it won’t adhere. This went well. I used 4 hour size, but it was ready within an hour ..read more

The Bishops tablet in progressSetting out the High Stewards inscription Last week I was working in Norwich Cathedral adding names to two stone plaques. The material seemed to be Nabresina Gold, which I have carved before. It’s quite hard, and ‘plucky’ in places, so I had to be extremely careful chasing in the serifs. The previous inscriptions were of varying quality, and stylistically a bit all over the place (for example the narrow 0’s on the High Steward numerals, which were somewhat at odds with what had gone before). I drew lettering that was close to, but not copying some of the better ex ..read more

Here are a few pictures of recent work, in different materials. First a bowl and memorial, both made using Caithness stone: Next, some York stone memorials: The last one is in Holkham Hall churchyard. I hope you find these interesting ..read more