Making an idea into a reality

Claire McDermott
7 years ago

Drawing an idea onto paper keeps the inspiration fresh.  From this starting point the drawing can be examined again and again to develop methods of construction.  Questions that I would ask myself when making a sculpture are, what type of material is it going to be made up of? What size it it and is it achievable, This Drawing can also be used to scaled up the sculpture and can be used as part of a proposal to get the sculpture off the ground. 

For this sculpture I proposed to use natural restores and so contacted Harrow London borough Council to ask if they could donated part of a tree stump that was being felled.  This led me to contacting Harrow Nature Conservation Forum who by chance where cutting down a tree due to fire damage in Stanmore common. 

A second project was developed from this drawing of the dried seed head, but this time by woodcarving the seed head into green oak. Green wood is wood that has not been kiln dried and is softer to carve as it has high moisture content. To avoid the wood splitting the bark must be removed and the inside of the sculpture hollowed out. My intention was to incorporated any natural splits in the wood into the design of the sepals of the spent Michaelmas daisies.

The large tree trunk that had been felled had an infestation of beetle levy on one side - about 5 cm wide.  The larvae dose not eat into the trunk it borrows into the tree rings and effectible eats it way around and around the trunk and only moving inwards when they need a new annual growth rings to eat. As the project continued it became apparent that the finished sculpture was either going to be smaller then planed or I would have to accept the scaring of the beetle levy.

The sack barrow played a big part in helping to move the huge log around and became a natural plinth for the sculpture. The sculpture titled Brink was re-titled Barrow.