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For those of you discovering the joys of stone sculpting for the very first time and old pros, here are five project suggestions you can do. These simple projects are sure to keep you busy and may even give you a few ideas of your own.

1. Home Security: If you have a home security system, Nanny Cam or any kind of home surveillance or monitoring equipment, consider aiming your creativity toward a piece of modern art cleverly used to conceal a camera or motion detector.

2. Bookends: Organize those books and maybe accentuate your collection with a little bit of cultural flare by crafting some modern art-styled bookends. Make sure the stone is heavy enough to hold the books but not too heavy for the shelves.

3. Flagstones: Create a path to your front door with some smooth and uneven flagstones to combine both the sophistication of a path and the primal sense of nature.

4. Decorative Paperweight: Craft something interesting and thought-provoking and combine the outside world with the indoor professionalism of the office with a stone sculpture paperweight.

5. Keychain Ornament: You’ll need keen hands and a light stone but it is possible to make a neat conversation piece out of your keychain with a small stone sculpture.

Creating sculptures out of stone can be a difficult and time-consuming process. While stone is far from impossible to work with, the fact that it is so rigid that sculptors can only work by chiseling away chunks of it mean that there is little margin for error when creating a work of art. Despite the difficulty inherent in working with stone, there can be no denying that a talented stone sculptor can create beautiful works of art from a slab of soapstone or marble.

The process of (more…)

Have you recently discovered a passion for stone sculpting and can not decide what to create first? Here are 5 suggestions for beginner projects to get you started.

1. A turtle: You can sculpt the shell with a head and forego the legs and tail and it will look fantastic.
2. Dice: These would be square with the dots on each side. This would help for getting straight edges and would be fun for you or your children to play with when they are completed.
3. A canoe: You (more…)

Every artist bent upon creating a beautiful object requires great materials with which to work. Musicians love great instruments, painters have favorite paint brushes, writers often become fixated upon their Civil War-era typewriters, and sculptors and stone masons are no exception. Choosing the right stone for sculpting is essential to the success of any project. Making the wrong choice can result in thousands of hours of wasted effort and vision, and can cost artists and their patrons considerably in (more…)

Once you have your plan, your supplies and safety gear it is time to pick a stone to use for sculpting. For beginning sculptures it is best to start with a smaller sized stones about 20lbs are less; however, if you are more experienced the size should reflect your artistic plan. Another variable to consider is the shape of the stone, traditionally square pieces are used; however, there are many people out there who break with tradition and use oblong or even circular pieces. When picking a shape (more…)

Stone sculpting is a time honored art that has survived thousands of years, and it is one that has its own set of tools, techniques and artistic drive. Finding the right set of tools is important because the work is time consuming, and tools make the work of art more approachable, and certainly more attainable. A ceramicist or painter or jewelsmith would never do any work without the proper tools; nor should a stone sculptor.

There are supply companies online that offer a great selection of tools for stone cutting. Dick Blick, as well as stonesculptorssupplies.com, offer (more…)