Relief Carving of Escher's "Waterfall"

[pallin]

I'm making progress on the "Waterfall" - I'll try to post a thumbnail below. The piece is 16" x 20" basswood. I have spent about 4 hours roughing in the left tower. The shape at the top of the tower is 3 nested cubes, each 45 deg. from the others. The big challenge of course, is to render the optical illusion of the water flow. If you look closely, it falls off the waterfall then travels "down" a brick channel, making several turns, only to fall off the rim again.
Phil Allin

[Claude]

Re: Relief Carving of Escher's "Waterfall"

Looking great, Phil!

Claude

[feb]

Re: Relief Carving of Escher's "Waterfall"

That's gonna be a nice one. I haven't seen anything like that before. Like to see it finished. feb

[Stryder7]

Re: Relief Carving of Escher's "Waterfall"

Very nice... looking forward to seeing more... should be a real eye catcher... something people will look at for a long time to see it all

Marianne

[GeorgiaCarver]

Re: Relief Carving of Escher's "Waterfall"

Great job on the relief carving. I like the debth that you were able to create in the tower. Can't wait too see more progress pictures.

Greg

[Guest]

Re: Relief Carving of Escher's "Waterfall"

Phil, I really do hope you can get this one down, but I seriously have my doubts. I left a few comments on the carvers gallery where I see some really difficult areas to develop. And like I said, over there, if you pull this one off, I want to enroll in the same class at Hogwarts as you did!

Have to admire your tenacity, either way!

Al

[Thomp]

Re: Relief Carving of Escher's "Waterfall"

Al,
I think hes going to pull it off, Although there is many points of deception in eshers art, i dont think it will be hard to pull off the deception in wood, if the proper places are chosen to do it.
hes got the waterfall, and the main point of deception is right around that..

keep it going, phil ya got a great project to show the false depth of relief carving going there....doing a great job...!

if you did that much in 4 hours you ought to be done tomorrow huh?

yea, right!
thanks for letting us peek over yer shoulder

[pallin]

Re: Relief Carving of Escher's "Waterfall"

There are several carvings in the galleries that show the false depth. For example, find "Two Chameleons" an Escher-design. The two lizards are inside three nested octahedrons. The octohedrons are 8" on a side, but the relief is only 1/2". The sides of the polygons had to slope to the correct part of the overall depth.

[Thomp]

Re: Relief Carving of Escher's "Waterfall"

my son got me interested in eshers work when he was in school, it got him a book on eshers artworks for his birthday, that year, i had never seen him so happy.. he is a involved artist in the weird and twisted views of things and dose lots of strange sketches.

thanks for taking on such a task, it proves it can be done
i was thinking of doing a half in the round lizzad carving to throw on the desk as esher had it in the book... ill see if i can borrow the book and get some snaps out of it.
thanks for shairing

[pallin]

Re: Relief Carving of Escher's "Waterfall"

Yes, Thomp, I have done two versions of Escher's "Reptiles." One is a relief version in which the lizards and the objects on the desk rise out of the plane of the drawing. The other was a collaboration I did with an artist in Italy. He did the drawing and objects as a wood inlay (intarzia) and I carved the lizards in relief.

[Claude]

Re: Relief Carving of Escher's "Waterfall"

my son got me interested in eshers work when he was in school, it got him a book on eshers artworks for his birthday, that year, i had never seen him so happy.. he is a involved artist in the weird and twisted views of things and dose lots of strange sketches.

thanks for taking on such a task, it proves it can be done
i was thinking of doing a half in the round lizzad carving to throw on the desk as esher had it in the book... ill see if i can borrow the book and get some snaps out of it.
thanks for shairing

Thomp:
Has he ever copied any of Salvador Dali's work? Some of that might be good in wood (I'm thinking the clock on the table...)
Claude

[Thomp]

Re: Relief Carving of Escher's "Waterfall"

claude,
thats the melted clocks and weird since of time meaning not to much?
right..

if so that bou of mine is 30 now but i think he did something like that in charcol.
he excelled in all his art classes but just held his own in the 3 r's
doing fine with his little landscape and design now. animal shaped bushes and weird flower plantings.. I told him it was a waste of his talent, but
hes happy though.

[pallin]

Re: Relief Carving of Escher's "Waterfall"

I was doing a carving demo for our local "History Days" and hoped to get a lot done on this project, but I spent too much time just talking. Anyway, here is a progress photo of it. I have done the upper part of the right tower and have begun shaping the water channel. So I'm beginning to meet the challenges of the illusive depth.

[feb]

Re: Relief Carving of Escher's "Waterfall"

NICE, i really like it so far ,it starting to come to life. it's gonna be a good one. feb

[pallin]

Re: Relief Carving of Escher's "Waterfall"

Here's another progress photo of the "Waterfall" as of May 23, 2007. I used a veining tool on the water and the falls, and have started shaping the strange plants in the lower left. Many hours of work ahead.