Welcome to my workshop!
In this section I am going to talk about how I make the pieces you can see on my website. We are not used to seeing the work behind a piece or a sculpture, we just expect to see it in galleries and exhibitions. I hope to give you a better understanding of the process and show you their story, from a piece of wood to a final project. I want to show you my workshop, and the connection between the piece of wood and myself, what tools I used, what the piece looked like when I started shaping it and how did I get to the final piece. This section will start with just a couple pictures, and I am going to feed it and make it grow as I go. Come back regularly to see it evolve!
In this picture, I am carving one of the pieces from the Rift series. This one was made in collaboration with Julien Monnier. I am using an angle grinder with an Arbortech disk to rough out the cloth effect. After this, I will be carving it by hand and sanding it.
Here you can see me turning the bottom of a drop with a bedan. This is the final step before cutting it and applying the finish. This drop is made out of beech, and for this one I am preparing a demonstration, I will be showing the audience how to cut the piece and start texturing it in front of them.
These pictures were taken during the making of “Cocoon”, in collaboration with Kailee Bosch, in her workshop in Colorado. You can see the pouring of the wax for the mold we will use in the next picture to cast the bronze. You can see the carving of the grain of the wood on the bottom were the bronze was cast. In the following pictures you can see the carving of the wooden part with a woodburner, the painting and the oxydizing of the bronze to make it dark, dipping it in liver of sulfur.
In that picture, I am carving the drop for a Ploc! series. The wood I am using is beech, and I am using rasps to rough out the shape and refine it, giving it the illusion of movement. I will be sanding the piece before turning it (see picture above)
Thank you Laurent for all of your efforts to teach and share your knowledge, experience, and feelings about your very creative artwork.
Mike Mitchell
Thank you for your kind words Mike!
Laurent, I’m looking forward to your demo August 4, especially how you carve with the woodburner, as I’m very keen on learning that process. I also like using liver of sulfur…it can give some nice purples at times.
Hi Rick! I am looking forward to that demonstration as well! I will show a little bit of the woodburning to texture the drop, it should be fun! Yes, I like the liver of sulfur, and when we made that piece we wanted something dark, but the purples and the red we got before that were pretty cool. And it is very easy to sandblast and start over if you don’t like the result!
Hi Laurent, I started a bit of woodburning after seeing Molly and Graeme demo their techniques several years ago. I have the double Mastercarver, and put togetter a Priddle unit, which works quite well. Will you be discussing which units are more suited for different techniques?
The mastercarver is the only one I recommend! I will talk about why and talk briefly about the pens I am using, but the demo being not focused on woodburning, I won’t go too much into the details. But I am more than happy to answer questions and if there is enough demand, I might do a second woodburning demo in the future.
Love this idea! In showing the process you bring together for the onlooker a sense of completions and wholeness. Thank you! Wish to your website great things!
Mark
Thank you so much Mark!
Looks great Laurent, the mood you made for the bronze,what are you making with the bronze???
Thanks Jerry! That was for Cocoon, the piece I made for the POP exhibition this year, in collaboration with Kailee Bosch. It is in my collaboration section.
I absolutely love your highlights of the process of making! Your passion for the process of creating pieces to express and evoke emotion is undeniable! Your work is amazing, thank you for sharing your energy with the world.
Thank you so much Eric! I wanted to talk more about the process of making for a while but I never had any pictures to support that idea. I hope to get more in the future and give a wider spectrum of techniques to raise people’s awareness and share my passion.