Welcome to The Wonderful world of Carving Soap. This is Chelsea, your tour guide today and I shall be whittling away at and then later altering an scented bar of green soap in to a Guinea Pig, (herein after referred to Dolf.)
These were the beginning stages of carving Dolph I and Dolph II
Dolph II is a bit overeager and a tad creepy looking, my apologies.
This is a subtractive process, I've cut Dolph II into chunks, and laid them out in graduating size.
Then I broiled the little bits of Dolph II in the over until there was a nice and unusual texture/colour overtop. Burning away the top levels of soap.
This piece is more of a commentary piece. It's still additive, I used a small stud earring and fixed a broiled bit of soap to a leftover sliver of Dolph II's head. We as people wear so many bits of animals like feathers and rabbits feet, I used part of the soap to make an accessory. This picture shares my message of how odd it looks at times to see people wearing animal accessories.
For this subtractive step I warmup up the soap shaving and chunks in a homemade double boiler and then scraped everything out and shaped it by hand. Circles speak to me of wholeness, and at this point poor little Dolph II has gone through a lot. I felt that making him whole out of so many smaller pieces and melting away a bit more of him in order to reform something whole was a nice step at this point. Subtractive process.
One of the first processes I completely after carving Dolph II was to realize that some of the pieced weren't fully unrecognizable. I liked the idea that in some way there would be a piece to recognize for awhile yet. All the peices are tied together with wax-coated black twine to show in a more pictureque sense that these pieces belong together, were made together and are still grouping together in whatever manner possible.
Meant to be an additive process.
Meant to be an additive process.
I noticed whilst carving the soap initially that is had almost a grain, the way wood does. I wanted to do something right off the bat the showed that texture, an integral part of the original structure. I used a small parring knife to almost pull the slices of soap apart to draw out more contrast between the pieces. This cutting is what I considered subtractive, especially since I removed several small pieces when reassembling the pieces in line for side by side comparison.
A bit of Hamster Hamlet haha. But I really meant it as a view of how one carving is whole and untouched standing upon the remains of the other carving. This one was whole because the other carving was curled and crushed away. I left the head whole to be recognized to present a better juxtaposition between the two. Subtractive process because I've grated some of the chunks left from carving the structural piece.
Growth. I had green soap and I felt compelled to bend to the feelings inspired by the color green. I wanted something to be able to combine with the soap and promote growth. I matched the soap with chunks of protein within a glass jar and placed a plant what a symbol of life and growth,) sprouting from the soap. An additive process that combines the soap with other materials to create something new.
For another additive process I boiled some of the soap into water to make it into a liquid, what I feel is the opposite state of solid soap. I don't have the capabilities to make it into a liquid soap but I wanted to change it's state. Also; since red is the complement of green on the colour wheel if I could find a way to turn it from green to the opposite colour as well as it's opposite state, I'd have made the soap into something as far away from the original product as possible.
Dolph Dolph II Signing off.
