Hand to Hand

I moved the preformed Hand into the studio at the beginning of the week, as I knew that more freezing weather was on the way. In fact, we received another inch of snow on Saturday (I've had enough of winter!).
The task for the week involved checking measurements between the plaster model hand and...

the large stone hand. Back and forth - from one hand to the other. In the foreground is the only tool that I used this week. It's an air hammer with a small chisel for ripping off heavy areas, and a wide chisel for smoothing out and refining the form. The pace has slowed down as I get closer to the finished shape.

There is a reference line all around the model. The line lays directly under the outside points.

I drew a similar set of reference lines on the concrete floor of the studio under the stone piece. They correspond to the other lines on a scale of 4:1, which is pretty easy to work with. We've made enlargements on stranger scales like 7:1. For that we had to use an enlargement scale wheel (ordered from www.woodcarverssupply.com). Otherwise, it would be hard to calculate things like 7 times 2-5/8 inches.