While cleaning (once is not usual) my workshop, I fell on some slates of the Monts d’Arrée, full of rust. And as I had a little time, I took the smallest of them to try an engraving and I chose a knotwork pattern from the book of Kells.
The top layer of the slate has left in places, removing the rust color on fragments of the pattern but I’m not too dissatisfied with the result.
This weekend, we celebrated a friend’s birthday. For the occasion, I engraved a small zinc brooch reminding her of her year of birth.
And also some slate triangles to put in her garden.
And as I offered her the engraving of “you are here”, I made another one for my garden.
For those who would still wonder how it is done, here is a little video where I am engraving the slate with my homemade tools
It is important to know where you are and to identify what is around you.
So I continue to engrave slate triangles that I place in my garden for crowd edification.
Chards that don’t seem to want to go out…
Salads that are difficult to confuse with an elephant but you never know…
A sign to know where you are…
And another sign, to know where everything else is. It is written in Breton and means “all directions”.
Yeah, because granite’s still hard. And when the slabs are already in place, it means making his engraving on his knees which is quickly painful.
So I resumed the slate engraving started last fall and abandoned because of cold.
The pattern is finished, all that remains is to dress it with filigrees. A few more hours of work ahead!
It was nice last weekend so I couldn’t stay scribbling in my workshop, I had to enjoy the garden a bit.
And I undertook to decorate the alley with various motifs, directly engraved in the slabs.
Starting at the end
and then trying a basic knotwork pattern
it’s still quite long to do, granite is not easily incised, I will think about new patterns for next weekend if the weather continues.
Sorry to have left you without news lately, I was in Belgium to give some courses, the proof in pictures :
already tired
photo bombing (no reason for only others to have fun)
And, did you know, the Namur region produces magnificent blue stones, much used in construction. My hosts (thanks again Geneviève & Eugène!) had some in their backyard that they let me bring back with me.
First engraving try, it’s not that yet but it’s encouraging
to be followed…
It is Virgil who says it in the Aeneid and, of course, he says it in Latin: Mens agitat molem
And so, my mind, without really moving matter, transforms it.
