Human Portraits

Here you see the start of a hand drill engraved portrait on a Dartington Crystal vase.

• First of all I will draw an outline of the face using a glass marker pen before going over it roughly with a diamond drill bit to mark it out permanently.
• After marking the outline I will start to carve out areas of the face in hollow relief so that the image is below the surface of the crystal, this is better known as Intaglio engraving.
• Once I am happy with the depth of all of the facial features such as the nose , the eyes, the cheeks and the chin I will start to carve in other details such as the eye lids, nostrils and lips

Engraving the face is almost finished but there are a few things to do before moving on to the rest of the engraving.

• Once the areas are smooth enough and I'm happy with how it is all looking I will then move on to the shading.
• Shading the areas around the eyes, nose andother features of the face will increase depth and also make a more realistic looking portrait. 
• There has been more work on this engraving since I took these photographs but I may not reveal the rest for some time as the person it was engraved for has not yet recieved it. It's a long story which I hope I will be able to tell one day.