There will be a three day hand carving workshop starting April 25^th on Camano Island at the Matzke Fine Art Gallery and Sculpture Park, which is a wonderful introduction to stone carving as well as great place to hone your hand carving skills.   

For those already carving, beginning May 5^th, two NWSSA veterans George Pratt and Michael Binkley will be holding in Vancouver, BC a five-day no nonsense intensive professional carving workshop for those who make (or want to make, a living carving stone). 

The week after that is StoneFest, where for the tenth year, Marenakos brings stone carvers, stone masons, letter carvers, landscape designers, architects, and those who simply love stone, together to make great things in Issaquah. 

For those with an interest in figurative carving, Sabah will teach a one day workshop on head/face carving at his studio on Feb 15^th, to be followed on March 15 by one on figurative carving. These are a great way to get the hands on hands-on basics of figurative carving and one-on-one instruction from Sabah.

Tim Reisenauer, a psychologist, will be holding a one-day workshop the first of March on using your personal strengths to find your personal carving style. This workshop comes with an on-line survey that you will use in the workshop to talk about your strengths and how to use them in pursuing your work. To learn more visit www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu and take the “VIA Survey of Character Strengths.” Even if you don’t go to the workshop you’ll find it interesting, especially if you are a fan of the books: the Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron or I’d Rather Be in the Studio by Alyson Stanfield.

So many good things that will make your time carving productive and meaningful, hope you can make some of these events.

Carve proud…

 …..Carl 

They have gone well and the Nov 16th Photographing 3D Art was wonderful teaching by example with a lot of interaction and questions. See the Nov 16th post at nwssa.org or on the NWSSA’s FaceBook page. Greg Krogstad brought his professional gear and Dan Colvin brought, “A good camera with a Home Depot supplemented” set-up. They took the time to explain how the equipment worked and what they were out to achieve by working with the stone carvers who brought pieces to photograph.

A few take-aways from my experience:

1. The photo you want to take should invite the viewer to ask more about the piece, not about the photography.

2. Nothing substitutes for a basic understanding of “how to use a camera to take a photograph” meaning to produce good photos you need an idea of how depth-of-field and f-stops work.

3. There’s an order and iterative process to setting up for a good photo.

a. Set your camera and piece for an initial composition

b. Set up main light source

c. Adjust background light(s)

d. Focus composition for shot and adjust.

e. Adjust fill lighting as needed. Once you have gone thru steps a-e and don’t think it’s a good image, move the camera, piece, base, or backdrop. If you like the image of your piece, consider leaving the lighting in place and rotating it for additional images that might better communicate your work.

Many thanks to Gregg and Dan for their teaching, Jack Stevens for his voice activated support, the stone carvers who, from the level of interaction I saw, really enjoyed themselves, and of course Marenakos for providing the great space to hold the event.  

And on a final note, one of the questions we asked in the workshop survey to our members was “Finding Your Style”. I was surprised at the interest (sandwiched in priority between “Pedestal Building” and learning about “Group & Juried Shows”) and think it deserves to be a future workshop. I will have more to say in the next issue and if all goes well there will be workshops related to this topic.

Camp Brotherhood 2014 is taking shape and there will be much to talk about in the coming months.

Keep checking Facebook for posts and the web site for upcoming workshops.