The Little Mountain

All of my sculptures start as large piece of bog oak which I would have personally chosen and collected from the bog near Loughgall where it has lain for over 6000 years.

The raw material is left to dry for up to 5 years, during this time I will be working at it taking off some of the dead wood and silt that is on the surface, and this is when you start to see what sort of sculpture you are going to have, and the dynamics of the sculpture starts to take shape.

Once dried, I then begin to remove all the soft wood and am left with only the core hard bog oak wood. This process is extremely long as the core wood is very hard and it takes a lot of time and patience to get into all the nooks and crannies. You can sometimes start out with a very large piece of raw material and end up with quite a small sculpture.

The piece is then sanded with 8 different grades of paper followed by oiling and wire wool. Once I am happy with the final shape natural bees wax is applied and hand polished.

The spalted beech base is shaped, and natural bees wax applied with the final stage being the attaching of the sculpture to the base.

All of my pieces are unique and they name themselves from the sculptures they create.

Each sculpture comes with a certificate stating where the bog oak originated and its date of origin, this has been authenticated by Queens University, Belfast.

The work began about 5 years when the wood was selected from the bog.

This sculpture weighs 2.85kg
Measurements are at the widest point.