Gypsy Caravan Auricular Frame Carving Progress

Here's the progress on Barrie's carving project. It's fun looking at the difference between the carved and uncarved elements. It's taken a while to get all this carved and shaped, but Barrie is confident that the rest of the project will not take nearly as long since there's quite a bit of design and thinking that took place to achieve the carved parts. Except for the grotesque at bottom and the auricular patterns at top center, the rest will be just carving the elements running in the opposite direction of what's already been established. It's really an exciting project and a harbinger of frames to come. WOOHOO!

Gypsy Caravan Frame ©2013 BL Bryant -- work in progress

Shaping Auricular Frame for Gypsy Caravan

Here's Barrie's latest frame showing the work in progress. He caught the carving fever while working on There'll Be Bluebirds (see it pictured in the previous blog post below) and thus chose to up the ante for this new project. Using several historical references from two important books, one by Jacob Simon, The Art of the Picture Frame: Artists, Patrons & the Framing of Portraits in Britain, and the other by Deborah Davis, The Secret Lives of Frames: One Hundred Years of Art & Artistry, Barrie created a preliminary full-scale drawing on graph paper and then transferred the drawing to the "blank" eight-quarter bass wood frame he cut and joined. He'll be posting more pics later this week, or early next detailing progress as well as the finished frame once it is ready for gilding, and certainly the completed project once gilded and prepared for the spring tour. Now we hope you enjoy these...and don't forget to click on each picture so that it will enlarge. WOOHOO!



This is the frame "blank" as prepared and ready for shaping and carving



Barrie using a jigsaw during the first stages of shaping

Spindle sanding is the next stage of shaping

Filing clean edges with rasps and rifflers in the warm studio. The painting resting on the mini easel belongs in this frame!

Here's the shaped frame ready for carving!