<<<< sandstones

I wanted to carve a piece that looked like an embedded fossil in a irregular shaped rock, as a technical exercise. This rock had been exposed to the elements for a long time before I started the carving, and as it is very soft stone, the rain and wind had already shaped the edges of the rock into interesting shapes which I felt I ought to keep. The stone was reclaimed from a North Cheshire garden and was originally one of the many large wall stones you can see in the area.

The two-tone effect is achieved by sealing the outer rock, with a sealant, to make it darker (wet-look) but keeping the carved ' fossil ' unsealed therefore paler in colour (wet stone nearly always being darker in tone than dry stone). I did work from a maquette with this one but it was really derived from a watercolour I had done, the actual carving did not take more than 20 hours due to the soft stone.

' Fairy Loaf ' is an old term for fossils which was in use before the advent of evolution theory in the Nineteenth Century.