Carvings
Below you will see some of my work that I have carved for family, for friends, for projects at workshops, etc. Such pieces as the Elephant, the stylised Elephant, the Boot, the Acanthus Leaf and the Bowl was carved as part of my City and Guilds Course. Unfortunately, I seldom have chance to create anything new for me so you will see some of my more elaborate pieces of work under commissions.
The very first carving I did was a lovespoon - back in 1989/90 and it is the first spoon photograph under the lovespoon section below. It has a Gothic 'G' and 'S' on the front and on the back it has 1973 carved into it - the year of my marriage. I gave this to my husband after I finished it and I am still as proud of it now as I was when I finished it.
Lovespoons
The spoon on the right is a spoon I carved for my sister's 50th birthday. She is a very keen knitter and so I spent a considerable amount of time drawing a page of knitting stitches first so that I would be more aware of how the intricate stitches are woven together before I put chisel to wood.
This spoon was carved for my Great-niece, Cariad. It was 5 years in the making so she had to wait a long time for it. She loves Giraffes and, at 6 years of age, was very much into Minnie & Mickey Mouse which is why they were included here. She finally had it on her 11th birthday - already having outgrown Minnie & Mickey.
Relief Carvings
The first two relief panels below have been included under the 'My Carvings' section (rather than the Commissioned section) because they have been carved as part of a 'Door' competition and were not, therefore, commissioned in the true sense of the word. Cardiff City Council had obtained funding to build a Training and Education Centre on a site they currently used at Bute Park, Cardiff. Two of my designs were selected and the two panels below are the finished pieces. The 'Walled Door' is made up of Oak carved panels by selected carvers and depict the history of Bute Park.
One panel shows a 'coracle' maker making coracles by the moat surrounding Cardiff Castle. The second panel is a portrait of Andrew Pettigrew who was brought from Scotland to Cardiff by the Marquis of Bute to develop vines in the park - hence the bunch of grapes included in the top right hand corner of the panel. The Andrew Pettigrew panel is housed in the door and the other panel hangs inside the building as they wanted to keep it.
The bowl shown below is a joint collaboration between Clive Griffin and myself. Clive turned the bowl and I carved the celtic knot pattern onto the rim.
The axe carving below was carved as a thank you gift to a friend of Clive's son (Tim) and daughter-in-law (Kami) who live in Canada. Whilst we were out visiting them a couple of years ago the friend took Clive and I out to the bush in a float plane. He was actually delivering supplies into a snow-bound mine that was being re-opened after the winter close-down. The mine was by the side of a lake, surrounded by mountains on 3 sides. It was only the previous week to our visit that the lake had thawed enough to allow the float plane to land on water so that supplies could be moved in.
It was a small thank you for a wonderful experience - a 'real' Canadian way of life 'in the bush'.
In-the-Round
Stylised
