Looking Sharp: Artist Carves Incredibly Detailed Animals On Pencil Graphite

Nebraska-based artist Cindy Chinn, 54, started carving graphite while preparing for an annual miniature art show in 2015.

Deciding she had to create something completely different from her competitors, Cindy started working on micro carvings of incredible detail.

Now she has created a name for herself as a talented miniature sculptor by carving delicate giraffes, elephants and dogs, but the work comes with many challenges.

She said: “Carving has a very different set of rules because you are taking away as opposed to adding. Take away too much and you are forced to redesign or start your project over.

“This couldn’t be any truer with graphite and when you are working in such a small scale, taking away too much could just be a slight scrape in the wrong place.

“Graphite is very soft and scars easily. You have to take care when you draw your design on the lead because sometimes those lines are difficult to remove while maintaining the design.”

The incredible carvings take hours to complete - dogs can eight hours to carve, giraffes take up to 12 hours and each tree up to three hours.

Cindy said: “Since I bought a microscope, everything takes long because I can get so much more detail. However, if I break something it can take twice as long. And in the case of giraffes I carved eight to get three.

“I once had a baby giraffe jump right off the pencil and run away, due to static. I never found it!”

Due to the delicate nature of the work, Chinn has had more than one creation crumble while she sculpts.

She said: “I have never broken a carving halfway through, they always break in the ninth or tenth hour of carving!

“Once I have carved something a couple or even a few times, I don’t tend to break them anymore because I have found the order that it needs to be carved in.

“You can also come across bad graphite, one that isn’t compressed properly so the graphite is loose and you never find that until you get to the middle of the lead.”

As she has not found micro tools small enough to suit her needs, Chinn creates her own carving tools from awls and small screwdrivers.

After eighteen months of practice, Cindy has trained herself to slow down and her new 90x diopter microscope allows her to carefully select every movement before she executes it.

Art Whitton, Cindy’s photographer, has also had to perfect his art to perfectly capture the minute detail of Chinn’s sculptures.

He said: “There are two big challenges in all macro work - lighting and focus. When I am shooting these tiny carvings, it is like shooting a portrait.

“I need to be aware of what areas are important. I need to see what angle of lighting shows the work with a nice contrast, but without too much shadow or overly bright highlights. It's a constant balancing act.

“When it comes to focusing, I need to be aware that if I focus on the front of the sculpture, the back of it will be out of focus. This is only a few millimetres away, so focus is critical.

“If the sculpture is of an animal, I'll try to focus on the eye just as I would with a regular portrait.”