Otter

This is my first 'public' work, so to speak. I often walk around Swindon's beautiful Lawns park with our dog, and I'd seen the 'Y' shaped stump of this old tree that had to be felled due to rot. I thought it would be great to turn this into two Otters diving after a fish. As it turns out the rot was to extensive to allow this, but I did manage one otter and the fish.

You'd think the 'sausage' shape of an otter would make it one of the easiest sculptures to do wouldn't you? I did too. In fact this nearly drove me insane in the early stages! If you look closely you can see the dark wood with a crack running through it in the thick part of his tail. Trying to avoid this so the fault didn't run through one of his legs was very tricky!

Also it turns out this tree is a Holm Oak. This explains why it was soo hard to carve!

Also he's quite out of proportion. I really wanted a deep curvy shape to him, which meant he needed to be much smaller, but my brain insisted on using all the length of the stump meaning he has more of a rigour-mortise look. Stupid brain!

Below are two slideshows of the progression of work from two different angles. You can see my other chainsaw sculptures here... Mushroom, Crocodile, Turtle, Eagle, Hare, 6ft Horse head, Panther.

Within a few days of finishing the Otter it was vandalised and broken off it's fixing to the tree stump. So I repaired it and I was able to re-home him at Stanton park, where my Panther also lives.