halsgevel01

The Neck Gable

Introduction:

Now this is a tricky one since I could not find the right translation for this type of gable. In Dutch this is called a “Halsgevel”. Neck is the English word for nek so I simply translated it one on one. I dare to say that this type of gable is the most common one you find in Amsterdam. They come in all types, shapes and sizes.

Sculpting the gable:

Working from a picture as well as from a drawing this time. Although I also like drawing these facades I will try to skip that part in the future so I can speed up the sculpting process. The temporary form I made for this cast is one where I added the vertical trim. This worked well and was a big time saver.
Also see my page on "Temporary Casting Forms"

For this façade I tried a smaller type of stone structure that turned out quite nice. You can find a lot of different sized bricks in buildings so it does not look out of place when you put a façade with smaller bricks alongside a façade with slightly bigger bricks.

The most challenging in this façade is the decorative trim. Here it really comes to modeling skills. This is one area I still have to learn a lot. Actually the size is too small for me and the material isn’t suited for such details. So I tried to do a kind of carving and scratching technique on the top of the gable. It worked well but the down side of it is that you have to do this twice and flipped. (left side versus right side)
The decoration underneath the window is also an item in need of special skills. I think I will sculpt these kind of items as accessories in the future.

While working on the ground floor part this part came loose from the upper part. No problem since the crack is on the most logical place, top of the ground floor. With so many windows cut, this exercise becomes rather standard. Not that I dislike it but it isn’t much of a challenge any more. The skylights however where new and although the technique is exactly the same as cutting windows, it was fun cutting them. This house has two doors which was quite common. The bigger one was for the family and the smaller one was for the servants.

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