I have gotten a reply from one of the companies/ stores I emailed however they referred me to the Bedrock Supply or one of the lapirdary stores and replied with:
“We are a retail selling gallery and do not have expertise on the actual process of carving. You would learn more from a lapidary shop such Bedrock Supply. They sell stone, the tools and finishing supplies for carving stone and also have instructional workshops. They could provide you with soapstone carving tips.”
I might have to call the store or just walk in and ask, and maybe look for more lapidary shops in edmonton, however mos tof the shops are just selling the art created by artists so they don’t have much sculpting experience/tips. Most of the artists also live pretty far away such as in sherwood park or red deer, I might be able to meet with them onine but don’t know if it has to be in person. I’ll have to ask Mrs. Englot about that.
I also figured out that its better to keep a small constant stream of warm water rather than dipping the stone every so often. I have also decided to match both sides of the face since one side is a bit chipped I’ll make the other side symmetrical to make it look better. The thicker wolf stone also helps with depth since I can add more details and skin it out to my liking compared to the thin bear one .
For my presentation I’ll probably bring both the sculptures and talk about the strategies I used and learned and what worked and what didn’t. I’ll probably include the how the shape and size of the sculpture affected the overall ending. That could include like height, thickness, any imprefections. For the what worked and what did’t I’ll talk about maybe the size and sharpness of the tools, temperature of water.