Fresh from the saw

After a little bit of waiting and patience, the right stone was found for the Cobtree Leaf cut - out. The quarry have managed to get me a beautiful stone slab measuring 2 m x 1.7 m x 250 mm. I wanted one face to be sawn and the reverse face to have a natural rough quarry finish. This texture and finish will add an extra quality to the sculpture as it will be positioned along a path that can be accessed from both sides. The leaf cut out still requires some attention and hand finishing after having being lifted straight from the saw. The leaf stem will be cut in and this will complete the design and change the sense of it just being a very irregular hole in the stone. The leaf CAD drawing worked and was compatible with the stone tooling machine and the layout and positioning still gives the sense that the stone is very strong and robust.
The initial idea that the leaf pattern could be cut from the slab and used within the design had to be changed. A separate stone had to be used to create the leaf and although I feel bad about wasting stone from the cut - out large slab, at least I can have the small leaf stem which would have been susceptible to breaking when removed from the centre of the stone.
I should be taking receipt of everything next week and the real carving can commencing.