2011 Whitehorse Day 3 (part 2) – Dry clothing make for happy sculptors

Day 3 (part 2)

We got to the block later than we hoped but we did have some dry clothes on and that perked our spirits up.

Although we had 14 hours left before we were to be finished, there was a sense of urgency in our thoughts. Everywhere we looked on the block we could see something that needed to be done. They eyes needed to be placed, the wings had to be given their final shaping and sanding, feathers had to be carved into the tail and the wings, the wolves had to be carved and the final piece (which is still a secret) had to be set up.

In a perfect world we had plenty of time but this is snow carving and things seldom pan out to be perfect. Carving a fine line with sharp edges can turn into a feeling of frustration when your chisel runs into an ice chunk. What is worse though, is when the chunk pops out. Now you have to fix the hole and make sure it retains the line you were originally hoping for.

We worked for about 4-5 hours at this stage and were able to put the owl’s eyes in place. This was a 3-person job and we were very lucky to have Laura Marcos from Argentina helping us at this time. With the NO RULES aspect of this competition, teams were pushing the boundaries on their sculptures. Some teams used a lot of ice or color within their piece. We used an extra helper for a couple of hours, a wee bit of color and a little ice to enhance our sculpture.