Completed stone carving

Well, a lot of wet and dry smoothing and polishing over the last few days and the torso is finally finished - hurrah! I was keen to get the piece completed and found an old block of oak that I'd been saving for the base. The highly polished surface of the Purbeck stone reveals some tiny fossil fragments and also looks a little like marble, the smooth lines provide an interesting contrast with the rough texture at the top. It's over a year since I started this piece but I'm really happy with the way it's turned out.

Stone carving update

For the last few weeks I've been working on this piece using a combination of chisels and some heavy duty rasp files to further work the surface; the trouble is, as I smooth the surface I can then see where I need do more work with a chisel, which then needs smoothing out with a file again and so on......