2016 Update 1: Letter Carving and a Sheep’s Head

Hello. Just thought I’d update my blog to let you know what I’ve been up to.

U+i Letter Carving

Back in December on a bitterly cold Saturday morning I was commissioned to undertake a trench-cut of a new logo for a newly merged company: U and I Group Plc.

Normally when letter cutting you cut a V-shape into to stone. In this case, it was a trench cut (flat). I was up on the scaffold and positioned the logo in place – the graphic designer was on hand to approve – and I traced it onto the very shelly Portland Whitbed ashlar already in situ, and started to cut into the stone, initially using a grinder and a die-grinder, then finishing it off by hand with chisels.

The logo is a sans serif lower-case and has a horizontal slice taken out of it. Rather nice in my opinion.

Sheep’s Head

I was asked by the Company Chairman of Environ Communities Limited to do a sheep’s head. Ok. I’d never done one before so I did some research and thought it could either be a ram in profile or a sheep in portrait. Some quick sketches were emailed and they chose the latter.

I had some stone in stock and started carving. Sheep are odd things. Like many domesticated animals the shapes of their faces are similar, and it’s not until you add the features that they are readily identifiable.

Here are some photos of the carving in process. I’m presently awaiting a photo of the carving in situ on the new housing development.

Note the features are now added (below) giving the form the resemblance of a sheep.

This is more or less finished, with a bit of work to do on the ear and some tidying up. I’m awaiting a shot of the carving fixed into the new building at the time of posting this blog update.