Carving Process for Sculpted Paintings

These photos show just a few snipits of how planks of wood develops from raw lumber to a sculpted painting.

The wood requires milling by our local lumber yard team at TimbrMart to enable Stu to work with manageable 2 inch pieces from large 10 inch planks of wood.

Click thumbnail to enlarge each image

  • Truck loaded with raw lumber to be milled at our local Timbrmart
  • That's one huge HEAVY pile of lumber! Unloaded from the Truck to Timbrmart
  • It was a tremendous help to us to have all the lumber milled with great precision from the expertise team at Timbrmart! Thank you guys!
  • Lumber being cut from large planks to 2 inch pieces.
  • From large boards, now to manageable 2 x 2 pieces, the wood is milled further to provide a join edge for laminating.
  • See what I mean? This expert team checked each piece to ensure quality cuts.
  • Masses of mahogany - all milled and ready to be magically turned into sculpted paintings! That's enough wood there for the next two years of works ... GET IN LINE ... celebrate!
  • Stu Leggett starting CLAUSTRO Sculpted Painting #066 - 1" x 26" x 107".
  • Stu brushing the epoxy resin on to the mahogany strips.
  • Stu still brushing the last bit of epoxy resin on to the strips and nearly ready to lay each piece in the clamps.
  • Ready to tighten the clamps.
  • The piece is clamped and the curing process has begun. The piece will stay in the clamps for several days.
  • View of clamping from the end - awesome joints!
  • Scaled Sketch for Still Ridge - to be a sculpted painting.
  • Raw wood after lamination for Still Ridge, Sculpted Painting
  • Wood with scaled template for Still Ridge, Sculpted Painting in progress
  • After completing the carving, Stu spends hours and hours of fine sanding the work using several tools and techniques. Here, Stu is using one of his larger sanders.
  • The sky on this piece however requires patience and skill in fine sanding with a much smaller tool. It's crazy hard!
  • Closeup of how Stu uses this smaller sanding tool carefully in each crevice.
  • Mid-carving of Still Ridge, Sculpted Painting in Progress
  • Carving Closeup of Still Ridge, Sculpted Painting in Progress
  • Stu brushing on epoxy left to right to seal the surface of the wood.
  • Still Ridge, Scultped Painting primed and ready for painting, work in progress
  • Early painting stages of Still Ridge, Sculpted Painting
  • Still Ridge
    Sculpted Painting
    38 x 42 Private Commission
    Feb 2011