In the past, tombstone can only be carved by hand. Thus, craftsman carves most of them into rectangle or semicircle shape. Barely a few wealthy families can afford to hire sculptors to design and make large beautiful gravestones for them. But now, with the fast development of technology, the cost of buying a headstone with sculpture has been significantly reduced, and the manufacturing method is becoming more complicated.

Today, it’s no surprise to find various carvings and patterns made in different means in a personalized cemetery monument. If you know these carving methods clearly, you can use them to design a tombstone and better express your ideas or even make it by yourself!

Five carving methods are frequently used for producing headstones. Some of them can be further subdivided. Some are indispensable steps of making a headstone.

Round Carving

Round carving is also called three-dimensional carving because viewers can enjoy it from different angles. It is the oldest and primary carving method. The ideas that can be expressed through round carving are rich, such as realism, abstraction, landscape, human, animal, indoor and outdoor works. But this carving method is primarily used for creating sculptures.

Carving a tombstone in this way is a demanding job because the headstone is bulky. Thus, the expenditure of purchasing this kind of gravestone is always higher than buying an ordinary one.

More than one hundred years ago, most round carving monuments were finished by sculptors with a solid art foundation and abundant experience. As a result, some of them were famous for the brilliant design. Among others, the Weeping Angel Headstone created by William Wetmore Story for his wife Emelyn Story at the Protestant Cemetery appears in popular culture frequently, and its limitations can be seen in the cemeteries around the world.

Although sculptors can use machines to help them carve stones in modern society, they still need to spend much time to complete a complex sculpture, so are headstones.

Relief Carving

Relief carving comes much later than round carving. But it also can date back to the days of ancient Egypt. It is a combination of sculpture and painting.The figures should be carved in a flat panel, and all images will be carved into the bulges. People can appreciate relief carving from one or two sides.

According to the degree of projection, relief carving can be divided into medium or high relief. Because of being carved on a plane, it is widely used on building, especially on large buildings like palace, temples, square, park or museum. Sculpture needs enough space to show their carving. Hence, this kind of work is usually finished on a wall, pillar, archway or the sides of a flower bed.

Many relief carving works have a distinctive theme. In ancient time, this art was preferred by kings and nobles. They use it to show their lives, express their opinions about death, pay their respect to the gods or record a significant event. Relief carving has developed into a peak in ancient Greece.

Now, the method is also used in tombstone production. As a headstone is less thick than a wall and the area used for carving is limited, the round carving for a cemetery is medium relief and lack themes. The familiar round carving for grave are flowers, tree, mountain and animals. Designers combine this traditional method with cemetery production to beautify modern natural tombstone.

Line carving

Line carving means carving stone by using knifes and some special tools. The lines may be classified into masculine and negative lines. Sculptors apply these two tools alternately. Finally, numerous flexible lines form an image.

The patterns displayed in this way are full of retro flavour. Not only gravestone but even granite memorial plaque with the tiny area can also be carved by this method. The processing charges of line carving is the cheapest for the fast carving speed and simple carving approach. Thus, it is applied most widespread.

Shadow Carving

Shadow carving was invented in the 1960s in Huian, China. The inventor intends to display the photo of Chinese president Mao Zedong on a slate. It was a bold attempt, and he finally succeeds.

The material for shadow carving must be granite with dark and pure colour like Shanxi black or G654 granite. The granite needs to be polished into a smooth and flat slab. Then, the sculptor should draw the shape of figures on the stone slab and use special tools with alloy steel to tapped the stone lightly. Because the sculptor needs to understand the principles of optical imaging and control well of the power of hands, at first, all shadow carving works are done manually.

In recent years, laser etching techniques have been applied to carve stone. But the image carved by the sculptor is more vivid and lifelike. In the 1990s, coloured shadow carving was created and extensively used in the artwork. Now, shadow carving gravestone is favoured by some countries like America and UK.

Inlay

The inlay is to dig out some parts of a headstone and fill other materials in it. The materials used to decorated gravestones are rich. Wood, granite, crystal, diamond, gold, silver, bronze and steel, all these materials can be used. As a processing method of headstones, inlay does not require sculptors to grasp complex carving skills.

The whole carving process is simple. Today, the inlay is typical in tombstone design. Designers usually choose a specific material as a gravestone and inlay the headstone with carvings of different colours. This kind of monument is accepted and in the promotion.

Xiamen Mason has operated a headstone business for near 20 years. We have a large production team that consists of more than 70 experienced workers and sculptors. Besides, we also have professional designers and CAD drawers.

We can complete marble or granite cemetery monument that produced by carving methods mentioned above. Visit our site www.xmmason.com for more information.