Egg and Dart.
This is another ornamental moulding which makes use of a ovolo with two fillets and is used frequently in classical architecture on cornices and picture frames in conjunction with other ornamentation.
The one I'm going to illustrate is from a 15th century Della Robbia heraldic shield made originally in terracotta and polychromed. It's overly chunky so that it looks like terracotta when it's polychromed and I also like a beefy frame.
I made the complete frame from one length of spruce and cut the ovolo in the normal way.
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Starting with a chamfer and moulding a Grecian ovolo, which has a compound curve and two fillets.
I like the Grecian ovlo, as it gives a nicer more eggier, egg shape.
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Spaced out the centers of the egg and darts with dividers and using a template I drew all of the eggs and borders for the shells or cup, if you like.
Cutting straight down with a stabbing motion, cut out the shape of the egg and removed the waste to form the curvature of the egg with a large shallow gouge used bevel up.
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Make sure to leave a flat in the centre of the egg, as this provides a reference point and helps to gauge the depth of the cut for the egg. This gets tidied up at the end, but it's essential that it's kept throughout the carving, otherwise the eggs will rise up and down, which would look weird
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Cutting, cutting, cutting up and down the moulding doing repetitive cuts using the inside shape of the gouges to form a nice egg shape and creating the internal slope of the shell when the waste is removed.
See how spaces for the miters are left between the sets of eggs...
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I then joined the frame and cut the pointy darts between the cups and formed the outside of the shell at the same time by stabbing down the outside of the shell and forming the dart when I removed the waste with the second cut.
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I can easily gauge the shapes of the elements when the frame was joined, as they were opposing each other.
Plonked a mitered cornice on it and cut a palm and dart pattern into it and around the returns.
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And a fern at the mitres on the frame.
And we're done and ready for gesso and polychrome.
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Not sure what's next up, maybe guilloché. Small egg and dart on a curved Roman ovolo, guilloché later.
