I had been on the lookout for some time for a piece of marble big enough for this project. The piece I found was not quite big enough but was adequate for a preliminary sculpture to the one I have in mind for another time.

Lady Arabella is the antithesis of the archetypal female nude sculpture, no pert token gestures here, just a tribute to gravity.

Unlike painting, sculpture as an art form cannot represent color, other than the natural color of rock. It can of course represent shape better than any painting allowing the viewer to appreciate the subject from an infinite number of angles, in three dimensions.

The color limitations of sculpture therefore make it difficult to differentiate between a sculpture of say a horse and a zebra.

Lady Arabella has large areolas, so I had to find a subtle way to make them visible. I decided that the best way would be to etch the area using dilute hydrochloric acid. It took just 2-3 minutes to etch the area sufficiently to make it visible against the surrounding polished marble.

By chance the effect was better than I hoped for, the acid not only etched the polished surface but exposed the crystalline structure of the marble creating small areas of reflective crystal. It's not easy to photograph the effect, but it's partially visible on the full size detail, picture bottom right:

Progress Pictures

Original Pebble

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Completed Sculpture

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