by Carl Hose

Created on: October 26, 2009   Last Updated: October 27, 2009

Stone carving is an art form that requires the artist to get his or her hands dirty and work up a sweat. Stone carving is done today pretty much as it's always been done - with a hammer and chisels. If you're new to this art form and wondering if you have what it takes to turn a piece of stone into something people can admire, the answer is, yes, sure you can. With a little practice and determination, you can immortalize your artistic vision in stone.

There are a number of types of stone you can use as raw material. Granite, limestone, sandstone, and marble are just a few. Granite is one of the hardest stones, so it may not be a good choice for beginners. Soapstone is a very soft stone and easier to work with at first, just to get your feet wet. Limestone is a little harder than soapstone, but still easy enough for a beginner. These stones have different character traits, though, so spend a little time reading about their properties before you make a choice.

The tools you need are fairly simple. Start with gloves, goggles, and a respirator. The respirator protects you from all the stone dust. You also want to have point chisels, tooth chisels, and flat chisels. Each of these chisels help you accomplish a specific carving task. In addition, you'll want to add pitching tools to your box of tricks, as well as a small and large hammer and a number of rasps and rifflers, which are finishing tools that allow you to file away rough spots in your nearly finished sculpture.

The best way to get started is to sketch your sculpture first. You don't need to be able to draw like a pro, but having at least a rough sketch of what you want to accomplish with your sculpture can be helpful.

With your raw stone in front of you and your safety equipment on, grab your point chisel and begin roughing out the shape of your sculpture. The point chisel is ideal for removing large chunks of stone quickly, allowing you to define your sculpture. Use a heavy hammer here.

From there, switch to the tooth chisel. This is what you will use to remove the peaks and valleys left by the point chisel. The tooth chisel is how you further refine the shape of your sculpture.

Use the flat and rondel chisels for smoothing out the marks your tooth chisel leaves behind. Switch to a smaller hammer and slow down your pace here and focus on bringing the final look of your piece together.

Use a trace chisel to create more precise lines in your sculpture. If you find you need to remove a lot of stone at this point, you can use a pitching tool to accomplish this. Once you have refined as much as you can at this stage of the game, it's time to do the final detail work, which you accomplish with your rasps and rifflers. These are filing tools that allow you to finish your masterpiece completely. The rasps are larger flat filers and the rifflers are curved files that allow you to get at hard-to-reach places.

You don't have to start big. Get a smaller piece of soft soapstone and practice getting your sculpture to come to life. It takes time to become good at carving stone, but when you finally are able to turn a piece of rock into a work of art, you'll feel a sense of pride and accomplishment that can't be beat.

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