"Ecliptic" monumental stone sculpture

I've been making functional garden art pieces for the last 2 months. I felt that it was time to try something a little more ambitious.

I had started this large granite hand about 2 years ago. I dusted it off, put it up on the work table and went at it hard all Monday. After working all day, I stepped back and asked myself "What did you do?". Granite is so hard that progress is painfully slow. I decided to put this sculpture back aside, because I was in the mood to make some serious progress on a large project.

So, I turned my attention to this unassuming stone block outside the studio door. Don't let it fool you - it weighs at least 7,500 lbs. and measures 72" x 39" x 34".

I dug this drawing out of the archives. This is something that I came up earlier this year. It is a combination between two designs that I really liked: The "World Flower" and "Harmony". It's also a heavily influenced 'spin-off' from the "Tree of Life" project.

I tried to create a scale clay model based on the drawing. One thing led to another...and this came out at the end of the day.

The next day, I refined it and came up with this. It's title "Ecliptic" and is certainly inspired by all of the planet watching that I've been doing this year.

The first thing that I did was to make a plywood template for the 32" sphere at the top of the design. I will also have to make templates for the smaller spheres later.

I carefully started to lay out the design onto the stone block. I used a 4" grinder with a diamond blade to incise the lines made with a wax china marker.

This is the progress at the end of this week. It is wet from a pop-up shower that knocked me out of working on it today. Usually, I won't work on Sundays, but it's so exciting and fun to start a new project that I don't think of it as work.