A recent spring trip to the Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge (Hilton Head) was inspiration for this wading bird sculpture. Combined with my first foray in to working with limestone it provided a perfect opportunity to create an “outdoor” sculpture to sit by our urban pond. Limestone can by placed outdoors. It requires no protection though applying a minute coating of wax every few years will avoid any staining from bird droppings. Even birds can be art critics.
Limestone can be worked with hammer and chisel or an electric grinder. I used both tools on this project, grinding away larger areas to create the relief and affecting the tree leaves with careful swipes of the grinding wheel. The detail such as the fine grasses and the beak, face and crown plume were created by hammer and chisel. The sculpture is 20” tall, 16” wide and 3” thick. The top is a natural break. The base is stacked marble slabs. The two pieces are assembled. Two steel pins in the limestone fit in to holes on the marble base.
