[doris]

mark, congratulation ! wow, what a project..you know i was in a church created by the asam brothers, its a small rokoko church in south germany, one of the brothers build the church, the other made the inside decorations. and there is the most beautiful altarpiece i ever have seen, it is not carved but sculpted from gypsum, and is maria ascension, and why i tell this, is that your idea made me immediately think of this altar piece. egid asam has designed it to be in a round of windows, but the windows not visible for the viewer, and the windows with a warm yellow glass almost orangy on top, and so the whole piece (which is huge, it fills the whole altar space, up to the roof) is backlit in a warm yellow light, which gets even warmer just over maria where the holy three is (dont know how call in english, sorry)...wow, and you are going to do an effect like this. wow, i am so very much looking forward to see this be created. hope we may see many steps :-)

[Fred Zavadil]

Mark, congratulations, this sounds like a great and exciting project I always say that what the regular woodworker or cabinetmaker cannot do will end up with a woodcarver - the customer was already quoted high price or told that it cannot be done and that is why your price can be higher. I hope you will post pictures as you work on it, your idea is really fantastic.
PS: Am I correct? - this is Rembrandt's painting, will you follow this one or will you create your own interpretation?

Fred

[mark yundt]

Doris your english is just fine and I undersand you completely! And you have given me other ideas as well. Thank you for your thoughtfullness and insight.

Fred,,I don't know if my prices are all that high on this one,,I just really want to do it,,and there is lots of work in this church if I mine it properly and follow the vein of gold. I imagine it is the work of Rembrandt as it looks like his style,,though there aren't any credits on the pictures he gave me. I am not familiar with all his work but I am inclined to say it is his. And ,,since he did all the work,,and the priest likes this painting,,I plan to follow it the best I can. I'm not sure how well it'll read since it has to be a shallow relief,,but I'll certainly give it a shot.

I won't be starting on this immediately as I have several other jobs going right now,,but I'll keep everyone posted.

[doris]

yes, it is rembrandts work, the image you showed mark is only a part of the painting, look here for example if you want see whole http://www.artchive.com/artchive/R/r...l_son.jpg.html

[mark yundt]

Thank you Doris. The priest had a large print of this painting hanging in his office. And then just last night on TV,,didn't it show up in the background on a show.Funny how those things happen. You never hear a word or see something,,then all of a sudden it's popping up all over the place.
I appreciate your thoughtfullness.

[mark yundt]

Got the other stuff out of the way ,now it's time to start on this project.

This is the preliminary layout for this relief carving. It's 2 ft. X 6 ft.,,,and I'll have to carve two of them. They'll be mirror images of each other done in Mahogany. The black areas will be cut away with the whole carving laid over a milk glass type backing to allow light to be diffused through the carving when it's back lit. I decided to only outline the faces and the hands as this I think is the most important symbolism in the piece. It may be difficult to see how the black shows through on these pics,,but when I hold the entire thing up to a light,,it shows up very well. Subtle,,yet very identifiable as to what it depicts.

And since I was cropping the painting so much,,I decided to add the trees in the upper right,,,and of course the symbol of the Holy Spirit in the upper left to round out and balance the piece. Of course,,,what church wouldn't like seeing the Holy Spirit decending on someone like this. They liked it ,,,so off I go.

[RussL.]

What? He didn't have anything that needed attention in the rectory?! ;-)

RussL.

[doris]

ah, fine , i love watching :-) ... you should carve an exact mirror of the piece, is that what you meant ? why ? i cant see the reason, i would have thought a similar, with other but related symbolism would be asked for... no, a pity, the black area is just black on my monitor, cant see anything there, but i am sure as you progress it will be visible too :-) ... thanks for sharing wip stages, mark :-)

edit... the hands look kind of small to me, but might be since i can see only silhouette, and not how they are placed in space

[JimSawyer]

Mark, Looking forward to watching this evolve. Am I understanding correctly? Are the lines making up the head and hands going to be pierced?

[squbrigg]

Congratulations Mark, sounds like you are going to be busy for a while! It's nice when one job leads to another and another, ...! Looking forward to seeing progress pics, once in a while.

Bob