Graeme Mitcheson – Stone Sculptor, ARBS

I have just returned from a  weekend down in Windsor with the family, apart from the obligatory outing to Legoland with the kids, we also managed to have a nose around Eton School. The most striking thing for me was the stunning amount of graffiti chiseled into every bench, desk, door and wall you see. Some of this stuff dates back centuries and judging by the size and depth of some of the carving, probably took several hours to do. In the museum was a special bench where naughty boys would sit  to accept their punishment, this was probably the only bit of wood in the whole school without a mark on it ! Occasionally, some of the carving would be of really high quality, obviously, these boys have been on one of my stone carving weekends for a few pointers, there are more details about my courses on my main website at www.chisel-it.co.uk and I will announce some new dates for these soon. Meanwhile over in Legoland there is a sensational collection of things created solely from Lego bricks. These range from cities,buildings and landmarks through to famous people, giant dragons, motorbikes and even a marvellous portrait of the Queen. Who are the people who make these things and how do you get a job like that? They are clearly very talented and judging by some of the humour attached to some of their creation are having lots of fun doing it. My C.V will be heading down to Legoland in due course.

Some examples of work done on a weekend carving course

On monday  I trundled accross to Leicester with a load of stone in the back of the “custard coupe” . It is the 4th time I have run workshops in Rushey Mead School and it has become a slick operation. The school have breeze block workstations set up ready and even a selection of tools (that the head of D and T picked up from a car boot sale!) so that we can get more children carving during the 3 day workshop. 26 children took part this year, working in pairs in short bursts they set about researching, designing and then carving their sculptures. This years group were particularly hard working, many sporting blisters, there was barely a moan until the final afternoon when they were all clearly shattered. Some good stuff was produced, not least by the 2 lads who hacked their way through their block to create a hole in the centre of their “comet” sculpture. Well done to all who took part.

Next week, the “custard coupe tour” continues up to Newcastle where I will be running some workshops around the Harbottle Park area in Byker. These are related to a large sculpture that I will be making there in September. During the workshops, those taking part will be asked to think of a moment during a football match that they have watched or played in. They will then record their expression during this moment, firstly in a sketch but then into a stone which they will carve themselves. Their designs will then be taken away and incorporated into a crowd scene sculpture that will be sited in the park around November time when I have carved it. From the site of the sculpture, Newcastle Uniteds St. James’s Park is clearly visible, hence the football theme. (They are also all football mad round there too!)

Work by the students of Rushey Mead School

It is an exciting project and I am looking forward to seeing the sort of ideas that I can use in the finished piece.

The funky new sculpture for All Saints Primary School

I finished the sculpture in All Saints Primary School yesterday. After a scorching2 or 3 weeks in the playground chipping away at the boulder, I put the finishing touches to the stone which celebrates the past and present of the school and Coalville. During the project I was aided by all of the kids in the school (about150) most of whom were happy to get stuck in, each child took home some free stone dust every night on their clothes to show their parents. Some of the kids showeda natural ability and picked up the techniques really quickly. Unfortunately, one 5 year old had a total scatter-gun  approach to where he was chiseling and proceeded to whack a big corner off one of the books that I had carved, ah well, you cant make an omelette without breaking eggs as they say. The sculpture will sit proudly for all to see at the front of the school when it is moved there in the next few weeks, just dont look too closely at the pile of books !

Fabio lays down the law.

With the hum of the vuvuzela ringing in my ears after a week of World Cup mania, I decided to pledge my support for our National Football team by carving these likenesses of manager Fabio Capello and team captain Steven Gerrard.  Of course this is notstrictly true. These are in fact a couple of carvings based on the designs by pupils of All Saints Primary School in Coalville. Following a pleasant upturn in the weather, I have been outside merrily carving the sculpture  that will eventually sit at the front entrance to the school. By the end of his week I will have been assisted by every student in the school. Each one, from 4 years through to 11, chipping away some stone to help to create the finished artwork towards the end of next week. Whether or not England will still be in the World Cup by the end of next week remains to be seen, hopefully no-one will be throwing eggs at my  Fabio effigy if things go belly up though.

Tom scales the climbing boulder in his socks !

This is a picture of “Tom” trying out the climbing boulder in Handsworth Community Park near Sheffield. I spent a few hours there last week carving some hand and foot holes into the boulders so that they provide a challenging climbing rock for the kids. Guided by Tom, a climbing expert, I carved holes and handles so that there were opportunities for climbers of all abilities to manoeuvre around the rock. Although I still have a few more bits to carve on it, Tom managed to climb all the way around the stone which I have to say was very impressive.

This week I am based in Rawlins Community College in Quorn, Leicestershire where I will be helping the kids to make 3 sculptural seats. I popped along last week to help them to generate some ideas for the sculptures. There were some exciting designs and I have the selected the 3 to be carved this week. I will post some images here during the course of the week to show how they are getting on.

I am pleased to say that I will be spending a few days in Rushey Mead School in Leicester in July running a stone carving workshop. It will be the 4th time that I have worked with the school although I missed out last year so I am glad to be going back. I will be teaching the students about stone carving who will then make sculptures that will be sited permanently in the school. The kids will work in pairs, in half hourly bursts. Because they have not chiseled before, it can be tiring so working in short stints increases productivity and helps to keep their focus. I really enjoy running workshops like these, it is great to get out of the workshop and have a good laugh with the kids (and staff who often do more chiseling than their students!).  I love their enthusiasm and the watching the pride they take in creating their first stone sculptures. I run many workshops in schools and they can range from group sessions like this one where a series of artworks are made, through to the creation of a single, larger, permanent artwork for the school. A few years ago I made a piece for Countesthorpe Community College near Leicester with the help of over 50 children. They each carved a face into a sandstone wall, the result was a kind of crowd scene with dozens of faces, each individually carved with a range of expressions. There are more details about my workshops for schools on my website at www.chisel-it.co.uk

Stoney faced.

A couple of weeks back, I spent a day in Rawlins Community College in Quorn in Leicestershire. As ever with events like these, you are never quite sure how the day will pan out, not in terms of what the kids are capable of, as they are generally great, but more in terms of what facilities and staff help that you are going to get on the day. As it turned out, when I arrived, there were no tables to put the stone on, not a good start . There were about 30 visiting artists at the college that day so things were pretty chaotic but luckily I managed to nab the caretaker who plucked some relatively sturdy old exam desks out of thin air. The room I was allocated was the training room for their brick laying courses, it does not sound glamorous but ideal for knocking lumps of rock about. I took 10 stones into the college and wanted the kids to carve a gargoyle. The day was split into 3 x one and a half hour sessions with 10 kids per session. The 1st 10 had the job of designing the gargoyle and starting the carving, the next 10 had the long slog in the middle and the last lot had the job of finishing the work, standing back and basking in the glory of their creation. All of the kids were brilliant, an hour and a half is a long time to be chiselling when you have never done it before but no-one go bored or tired and they all saw their session through to the end. Below is a pic of  the finishd gargoyles. Probably the best bit of the day was when the the kids who attended the 1st session returned to see how their sculptures ended up. Some of them were completely unrecognisable ( the gargoyles not the kids) whereas others had had kept their form throughout the day. The college will keep the carvings and they should make for great little features around the college for years to come.As for the teacher who was meant to be helping ? The kids needed no looking after as they were so engrossed with their carving that he was able to spend the day carving his own gargoyle. He really got into it and made a super piece of work !

10 Gragoyles at Rawlins Community College

Adrian Chiles and Gary Lineker.

I carry out many projects like this, sometimes as part of public art project or often during a project such as the Rawlins one. There is a PDF document on www.chisel-it.co.uk which outlines a few ways of running a stone carving session in a school and gives an idea of prices.

Welcome to my 1st ever blog post. Hopefully you will have visited www.chisel-it.co.uk where you will have seen images of my sculptures and the sort of stuff that I get up to including courses and work in schools etc. I hope that this blog site will allow me to post up to date pics of my work and sculptures evolving from rough blocks through to the finished pieces. I will also post dates of courses and any events that I will be attending.

Right now in the workshop I am coming towards the end of a sculpture due to be sited in Market Warsop in Notts. It is a Kilkenny Limestone piece about 2m tall. As you can see, parts of the stone are polished and I have worked back into these to create texture and the finished surface.  Kilkenny limestone is a beast of a stone, not great for carving but it does take a good polish and picks up the textures that I wanted. It is extremely hard for a limestone and therefore great for a public sculpture. I have used it before on a number pieces, the mussel sculpture on Conwy Quay being my favourite to date. This piece even made it onto the Antiques Road Show when Fiona Bruce talked about the mussel fishing industry while more recently made it into the Britannica Book of Molluscs (or something similar) You can see this on the opening page of www.chisel-it.co.uk The 1st time I used Kilkenny was for the seats in Museum Square in Leicester in 2003. The polish on these has faded but it has kept a good shine where people have been touching and climbing on them which is great.

I will continue to post pics about the sculpture as it comes closer to completion.