Burngate Purbeck Stone Centre Workshop

Hi everyone!

This week my Dad and I took an impromptu trip to the Burngate Purbeck Stone Centre for a 2 hour stone carving workshop. Before I arrived there, I had prepared a sketch for the class but didn't really know what to expect from the class itself, or how difficult it might be to carve stone into something aesthetically lovely.

I had the best time! Here is my creation:

This is an Art Nouveau inspired fish tile measuring about 5" x 5". Considering that I've never tried stone carving before, I am really pleased with my result! We had a great teacher [Jonathan Sells] and even though I was worried that 2 hours would not be long enough, I think going in prepared with my design helped a lot. Also, I am the type of person who given the chance, will just keep hacking away at something forever if I don't have a time limit; so it was a positive thing for me to see how much can be done in that time!

We started off learning how to make a relief square, like this:


I could see how the first edges of my square were quite wobbly, and then as I got the hang of it they straightened out (a bit). You don't have to hit the chisel hard at all, so I was tapping away quite cautiously at first but I felt my confidence grow in the last half hour! I realised quickly that the general principle of it is very similar to lino cutting, of which I have some experience, so that also helped.

As with the classes that I teach myself, I was delighted to see the results of all my classmates at the end, and how varied our tiles came out with different styles of design:

I would highly recommend a course at the Burngate Purbeck Stone Centre for anyone willing to have a go. You will be amazed at what you can achieve! :) Here is me and my Dad with our creations:


That's it for today, see you soon!

Sarah :)

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