Making the first move!

It seemed like the perfect time to make the first attempt to move the block and get it upright! I felt I had removed as much of the stone as I could at this stage and in order to progress I was going to have to think about the lift. Everything up until this stage has felt very mechanical about my way of working. The blocking out stage is always pretty straight forward and not necessarily that interesting! It does however require tremendous amounts of splitting and cutting, which also requires the motivation and energy of course to keep repeating the process.

However, excitement and trepidation always builds when you know you are going to see the stone standing and be only one of a handful of people who will have seen the back of the stone for the first time. There is still around 2.5 ton in the block and I am aiming to have this reduced to around 2 ton by the time I have worked the back and the sculpture is nearing completion. Until that time there is still a lot more grinding to be done.